New devise in New Mexico turns back clock on astronomy

[Judi Lynn]

Morgan Lee, Associated Press
Updated 4:33 pm CST, Tuesday, December 31, 2019



Photo: Morgan Lee, AP
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In this Dec. 11, 2019 photo Bill Donahue, a retired teacher and director of laboratories at St. John's College, uses an armillary sphere to track planetary rotations and explore the history of astronomy in Santa Fe, N.M. The unique precision-steel replica of an instrument created by Danish astonomer Tycho Brahe was commissioned by graduates of the college where students trace the evolution of math and science from early civilizations.

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A newly forged steel instrument that can pinpoint the path of stars and planets across the night sky using the naked eye is a throwback to the years just before the advent of telescopes, returning stargazers in the hills of northern New Mexico to the essentials of astronomy in the past.

Installed at St. John's College by graduates, the device is a remake of long-lost originals devised by Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe in the late 16th century to chart the location of stars and the orbits of planets.

It consists of four interlocking rings — forged of precision steel and aligned with the north star and equator — combined with a sliding viewfinder that is moved by hand to measure angles between the any celestial object, the horizon and the equator.

Lengthy, painstaking measurements from such an instrument in the late-1500s allowed Johannes Kepler to show that Mars revolved in an elliptical orbit around the sun, disproving the entrenched theory of the circular movement of heavenly bodies and setting off a search of new theories of planetary motion and forces.

More:
https://www.chron.com/news/education/article/New-devise-in-New-Mexico-turns-back-clock-on-14942332.php

[dhill926]

1. Fascinating...