“Fake” Armillary Spheres

Do you notice anything wrong about these two pictures? The armillary spheres are wrong! The ecliptic links the arctic and antarctic circles instead of the tropics!

Front piece of the 1699 Latin edition of the Dialogo	Adam Schall (1591-1666), Imperial Astronomer in Beijing

The front piece from the original Italian edition of the Dialogo from 1632 has a correct armillary.

Armillary sphere links

• The Armillary Sphere by Richard A. Paselk.
• The Armillary Sphere from the Whipple Museum of the History of Science and the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge.

Back to the page for my course Heavenly Mathematics & Cultural Astronomy.

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