The Book of Fixed Stars (in Arabic: كتاب صور الكواكب /kitab suwar al kawakib/) is an astronomical text written by Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi (Azophi) around 964. The book was written in Arabic, although the author himself was Persian. It was an attempt to create a synthesis of the most popular classical work of astronomy — Ptolemy’s Almagest — with the indigenous Arabic tradition, or Anwa.
The book was thoroughly illustrated along with observations and descriptions of the stars, their positions, their magnitudes (brightness) and their color. His results were set out constellation by constellation. For each constellation, he provided two drawings, one from the outside of a celestial globe, and the other from the inside.
The work was highly influential and survives in numerous manuscripts and translations. The oldest manuscript, kept in the Bodleian Library, dates to 1009 and is the work of the author's son.
He has the earliest known descriptions and illustrations of what he called "A Little Cloud" which is actually the Andromeda Galaxy. He mentions it as lying before the mouth of a Big Fish, an Arabic constellation. This "cloud" was apparently commonly known to the Isfahan astronomers, very probably before 905. The first recorded mention of the Large Magellanic Cloud was also given by Abd Al-Rahman Al Sufi in his Book of Fixed Stars. These were the first galaxies other than the Milky Way to be observed from Earth. The Great Andromeda Nebula he observed was also the first true nebula to be observed, as distinct from a star cluster.
He probably also cataloged the Omicron Velorum star cluster as a "nebulous star", and an additional "nebulous object" in Vulpecula, a cluster now variously known as Al Sufi's Cluster, the "Coathanger asterism", Brocchi's Cluster or Collinder 399. Moreover, he mentions the Large Magellanic Cloud as Al Bakr, the White Ox, of the southern Arabs as it is visible from Southern Arabia, although not from more northern latitudes.
There has not been a published English translation of the book, though it was translated into French by Hans Schjellerup in 1874. As of March 2012, one is in preparation by Ihsan Hafez of James Cook University, Townsville.
Read more about Book Of Fixed Stars: Editions
Famous quotes containing the words book, fixed and/or stars:
“The last publicized center of American writing was Manhattan. Its writers became known as the New York Intellectuals. With important connections to publishing, and universities, with access to the major book reviews, they were able to pose as the vanguard of American culture when they were so obsessed with the two Joes—McCarthy and Stalin—that they were to produce only two artists, Saul Bellow and Philip Roth, who left town.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“The nation looked upon him as a deserter, and he shrunk into insignificancy and an earldom.... He was fixed in the house of lords, that hospital of incurables, and his retreat to popularity was cut off; for the confidence of the public, when once great and once lost, is never to be regained.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“And in their blazing solitude
The stars sang in their sockets through the night:
“Blow bright, blow bright
The coal of this unquickened world.””
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)