An Astrolabe Alert

I was reading the book Persian Art & Architecture by Henri Stierlin with photographs by Henri and Anne Stierlin and Adrien Buchet (Thames & Hudson, 2012) when I came across a section on the astrolabe.

The astrolabe is a historic device to locate the sun, moon and stars.  What I liked about it was it is kind of steampunky with all the moving parts.

I searched the Internet for some examples of astrolabes and was even more keen to try this as a form after seeing the multiplicity of types the ancients had.

Then I found a piece called Poetical Modesty made by the fabulous Keith Lo Bue which is inspired by a Persian astrolabe.  You can read all about Keith's method at http://keithlobue.blogspot.com/2010/06/poetical-modesty-in-progress-stage-1.html.

So now it came time for me to try my hand at the astrolabe form.  I started the base off with a plastic peanut butter container lid.

So, after about eight hours of work on about $5 worth of parts, I had my astrolabe that I call Alert.