The Ulugh Beg Observatory is an observatory in modern day Samarkand, Uzbekistan, which was built in the 1420s by the Timurid astronomer Ulugh Beg. This school of astronomy was constructed under the Timurid Empire, and was the last of its kind from the Islamic Medieval period[1]. Islamic astronomers who worked at the observatory include Jamshid al-Kashi, Ali Qushji, and Ulugh Beg himself. The observatory was destroyed in 1449 and rediscovered in 1908.
The Ulugh Beg Observatory is an observatory in modern day Samarkand, Uzbekistan, which was built in the 1420s by the Timurid astronomer Ulugh Beg. This school of astronomy was constructed under the Timurid Empire, and was the last of its kind from the Islamic Medieval period[1]. Islamic astronomers who worked at the observatory include Jamshid al-Kashi, Ali Qushji, and Ulugh Beg himself. The observatory was destroyed in 1449 and rediscovered in 1908.
The foundation for Ulugh Beg Observatory was laid in the earlier half of the 1420s (823 AH). Although the year of its completion is still debated, the observatory was completed around 1428 AD (831 AH).
Today, the foundations and the buried part of the marble quadrant are all that are visible of the original vestiges of the Ulugh Beg Observatory. Much of the decline of the observatory has been attributed to Ulugh Beg's assassination by his son, Abd al Latif, around 1449 (852 AH).
The radius of the sextant was 40.04 meters,[2] which made it the largest astronomical instrument in the world at the time. With this radius, the height of the building would have to have been so large that it could have caused it to be too tall, potentially falling in on itself. This problem was solved by constructing part of the sextant underground, in a ditch roughly 2 meters wide.[2] This allowed the size of the sextant to be maintained without the height being dangerously tall.
The Fakhrı sextant had 70.2 cm divisions which represented one degree. There were also marks every 11.7mm to show one minute and 1mm marks that represented five seconds. These markings turned out to be extremely accurate, matching up closely to the calculations found today.[2]
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- ^ a b Zotti, Georg; Mozaffari, S. Mohammad (2020). "New Light on the Main Instrument of the Samarqand Observatory". Journal for the History of Astronomy. 51 (3): 255–271. doi:10.1177/0021828620943986. ISSN 0021-8286 – via Sage Journals.
- ^ a b c Hughes, Mary (2016-08-25). "Ulugh Beg". Perth Observatory. Retrieved 2023-12-06.