Book of Fixed Stars
Encyclopedia
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
: كتاب صور الكواكب /kitab suwar al kawakib/) is an astronomical
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
text written by Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi (Azophi) around 964
964
Year 964 was a leap year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar.- Religion :* May 22 – Pope Benedict V begins his pontificate as the 132nd pope, chosen by the people of Rome over Pope Leo VIII....
. The book was written in Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
, although the author himself was Persian
Persian people
The Persian people are part of the Iranian peoples who speak the modern Persian language and closely akin Iranian dialects and languages. The origin of the ethnic Iranian/Persian peoples are traced to the Ancient Iranian peoples, who were part of the ancient Indo-Iranians and themselves part of...
. It was an attempt to create a synthesis of the most popular classical work of astronomy — Ptolemy
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the...
’s Almagest
Almagest
The Almagest is a 2nd-century mathematical and astronomical treatise on the apparent motions of the stars and planetary paths. Written in Greek by Claudius Ptolemy, a Roman era scholar of Egypt,...
— with the indigenous Arabic tradition, or Anwa.
The book was thoroughly illustrated along with observations and descriptions of the star
Star
A star is a massive, luminous sphere of plasma held together by gravity. At the end of its lifetime, a star can also contain a proportion of degenerate matter. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth...
s, their positions, their magnitudes
Apparent magnitude
The apparent magnitude of a celestial body is a measure of its brightness as seen by an observer on Earth, adjusted to the value it would have in the absence of the atmosphere...
(brightness) and their color. His results were set out constellation
Constellation
In modern astronomy, a constellation is an internationally defined area of the celestial sphere. These areas are grouped around asterisms, patterns formed by prominent stars within apparent proximity to one another on Earth's night sky....
by constellation
Constellation
In modern astronomy, a constellation is an internationally defined area of the celestial sphere. These areas are grouped around asterisms, patterns formed by prominent stars within apparent proximity to one another on Earth's night sky....
. For each constellation
Constellation
In modern astronomy, a constellation is an internationally defined area of the celestial sphere. These areas are grouped around asterisms, patterns formed by prominent stars within apparent proximity to one another on Earth's night sky....
, 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
Bodleian Library
The Bodleian Library , the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library...
, dates to AD 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
Andromeda Galaxy
The Andromeda Galaxy is a spiral galaxy approximately 2.5 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Andromeda. It is also known as Messier 31, M31, or NGC 224, and is often referred to as the Great Andromeda Nebula in older texts. Andromeda is the nearest spiral galaxy to the...
. He mentions it as lying before the mouth of a Big Fish, an Arabic constellation
Constellation
In modern astronomy, a constellation is an internationally defined area of the celestial sphere. These areas are grouped around asterisms, patterns formed by prominent stars within apparent proximity to one another on Earth's night sky....
. This "cloud" was apparently commonly known to the Isfahan
Isfahan (city)
Isfahan , historically also rendered in English as Ispahan, Sepahan or Hispahan, is the capital of Isfahan Province in Iran, located about 340 km south of Tehran. It has a population of 1,583,609, Iran's third largest city after Tehran and Mashhad...
astronomers, very probably before 905
905
Year 905 was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar.- Africa :* The Abbasid Caliphate re-establishes control of Egypt from the Tulunids.- Asia :...
AD. The first recorded mention of the Large Magellanic Cloud
Large Magellanic Cloud
The Large Magellanic Cloud is a nearby irregular galaxy, and is a satellite of the Milky Way. At a distance of slightly less than 50 kiloparsecs , the LMC is the third closest galaxy to the Milky Way, with the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal and Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy lying closer to the center...
was also given by Abd Al-Rahman Al Sufi in his Book of Fixed Stars. These were the first galaxies
Galaxy
A galaxy is a massive, gravitationally bound system that consists of stars and stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and dust, and an important but poorly understood component tentatively dubbed dark matter. The word galaxy is derived from the Greek galaxias , literally "milky", a...
other than the Milky Way to be observed from Earth. The Great Andromeda Nebula he observed was also the first true nebula
Nebula
A nebula is an interstellar cloud of dust, hydrogen gas, helium gas and other ionized gases...
to be observed, as distinct from a star cluster
Star cluster
Star clusters or star clouds are groups of stars. Two types of star clusters can be distinguished: globular clusters are tight groups of hundreds of thousands of very old stars which are gravitationally bound, while open clusters, more loosely clustered groups of stars, generally contain less than...
.
He probably also cataloged the Omicron Velorum
Omicron Velorum
Omicron Velorum is a star in the constellation Vela.Omicron Velorum is a blue-white B-type subgiant with a mean apparent magnitude of +3.60. It is approximately 495 light years from Earth. It is a variable star and its brightness varies from magnitude +3.55 to +3.67 with a period of 2.78 days....
star cluster
Star cluster
Star clusters or star clouds are groups of stars. Two types of star clusters can be distinguished: globular clusters are tight groups of hundreds of thousands of very old stars which are gravitationally bound, while open clusters, more loosely clustered groups of stars, generally contain less than...
as a "nebulous star", and an additional "nebulous object" in Vulpecula, a cluster now variously known as Al Sufi's Cluster, the "Coathanger asterism
Asterism (astronomy)
In astronomy, an asterism is a pattern of stars recognized on Earth's night sky. It may form part of an official constellation, or be composed of stars from more than one. Like constellations, asterisms are in most cases composed of stars which, while they are visible in the same general direction,...
", Brocchi's Cluster
Brocchi's Cluster
Collinder 399 is a random grouping of stars located in the constellation Vulpecula near the border with Sagitta. Collinder 399 is known as Al Sufi's Cluster or Brocchi's Cluster...
or Collinder 399. Moreover, he mentions the Large Magellanic Cloud
Large Magellanic Cloud
The Large Magellanic Cloud is a nearby irregular galaxy, and is a satellite of the Milky Way. At a distance of slightly less than 50 kiloparsecs , the LMC is the third closest galaxy to the Milky Way, with the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal and Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy lying closer to the center...
as Al Bakr, the White Ox, of the southern Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
s as it is visible from Southern Arabia, although not from more northern latitudes.
Editions
- Ketāb ṣowar al-kawākeb al-ṯābeta, edited from five mss., and accompanied by the Orǰūza of Ebn al-Ṣūfī, Hyderabad, India, 1954 (introduction by H. J. J. Winter).
- Facsimile edition of the Persian translation by Naṣīr-al-dīn Ṭūsī (Ayasofya 2595, autograph, from Uluḡ Beg’s library), Tehran, 1348 Š./1969.
- Critical edition of Ṭūsī's translation by Sayyed Moʿezz-al-dīn Mahdavī, Tehran, 1351 Š./1972.
- French translation with selected portions of the Arabic text, from two mss., H. C. F. Schjellerup, Description des étoiles fixes par Abd-al-Rahman al Sûfi, St. Petersburg, 1874.
- Text and French translation of Ṣūfī's introduction by J. J. A. Caussin de Perceval in Notices et extraits des manuscrits XII, Paris, 1831, pp. 236f.
- The star nomenclature of the Castilian version, and of an Italian translation made from Castilian, was critically edited by O. J. Tallgren, Los nombres arabes de las estrelas y la transcripción alfonsina, in Homenaje a R. Menéndez Pidal II, Madrid, 1925, with 'Correcciones y adiciones' in Revista de filología española 12, 1925, pp. 52f.
- The Italian translation was edited by P. Knecht, I libri astronomici di Alfonso X in una versione fiorentina del trecento, Saragossa, 1965.
- Ketāb al-ʿamal bi’l-asṭorlāb in 386 chapters, ed. from a Paris ms., Hyderabad (Deccan), 1962; an English introduction, by E. S. Kennedy and M. Destombes, was printed separately (Hyderabad, 1967).
External links
- Biography of Al Sufi
- Copy (dated c. 1730) of al-Sufi's Book of the Fixed Stars
- Ulugh Beg in www.atlascoelestis.com
- http://www.atlascoelestis.com/Sufi%201730%20Pagina.htmLiber locis stellarum fixarum, 964, manoscritto del 1417 riprodotto il 1730 in www.atlascoelestis.com
- Pergamenthandschrift M II 141 in www.atlascoelestis.com
- A page about Muslim Astronomers
- Al-Sufi's constellations