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 of, book, fixed and/or stars:
“I don’t know but a book in a man’s brain is better off than a book bound in calf—at any rate it is safer from criticism. And taking a book off the brain, is akin to the ticklish & dangerous business of taking an old painting off a panel—you have to scrape off the whole brain in order to get at it with due safety—& even then, the painting may not be worth the trouble.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Adam sat like a lawyer
and read the book of life.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“At first I intended to become a student of the Senate rules and I did learn much about them, but I soon found that the Senate had but one fixed rule, subject to exceptions of course, which was to the effect that the Senate would do anything it wanted to do whenever it wanted to do it.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“I teach at Harvard that the world and the heavens, and the stars are all real, but not so damned real, you see.”
—Josiah Royce (1855–1916)