Taqi al-Din's precision clocks
Relojes de precisión del observatorio de Taqi al-Din
- Date
- 1577 · confidence medium
- Place
- Istanbul, Türkiye
- Credited to
- Taqi al-Din al-Rasid
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
What it is
A weight-driven mechanical clock that indicated hours, minutes and seconds, built to record the exact moment of astronomical observations at the Istanbul observatory (1577). Taqi al-Din had already described the design in a treatise of 1559.
The observatory was destroyed in 1580 and no clock survives; Tycho Brahe used similar clocks at about the same time. The real accuracy of Taqi al-Din's clocks is known only from his tables and descriptions.
What it led to
- precise timing of astronomical observations
- the observatory clock as a tool of precision astronomy