Presentation: Forgotten History: Al-Sufi's Book of Fixed Stars

On Friday 27th of January, 2018, I gave a presentation at the KW RASC on Al-Sufi's Book Of Fixed Stars.

The book is the first illustrated pictorial star atlas, and was very influential for centuries after it was authored. It spread widely from central Asia, throughout the Middle East, and to Europe. It was translated into many languages.

Here is the presentation slides, and audio recording:

• The presentation slides, in PDF format (5.2MB) ,
• The audio recording in MP3 zipped format (~ 77MB) of the talk,

More interesting is that you can view the book itself, in various manuscripts:

• From the Library of the Congress, you can download, also as PDF for easy browsing, a Manuscript from 1417 C.E. , and another.
• The Bodleian manuscript, from 1170 C.E.
• The Ulugh Beg manuscript, lavishly illustrated and with gold leaf, and meticulously written.

Hope you enjoy it.