You need two to Tango or to create a special Astrolabe
How Hemisferium and KAUST joined forces to develop a new instrument
We always welcome new and exciting projects . At the end of 2009, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (Saudi Arabia) contacted us to make an Islamic astrolabe, their “Graduation Astrolabe”. This project became a reality one year later . For this project we collaborated with their team. We secured the services of Dr. Luis Hidalgo Velayos as our scientific consultant who made the calculations to update the original astrolabe, which was chosen from the Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum collection, in Chicago. We also had Dr. Luis Samsó, an expert in Islamic Culture and Islamic Astronomy. The support from Casa Árabe (Arab House) of Madrid and Andrés Martinez, our in-house designer, as part of our team, among many, many others at different stages of the process . The result of this intense collaboration project is our Eastern Astrolabe, H36. It´s a wonderful instrument that we are all were happy with and very proud of . Over the years, we have designed and developed other instruments, but this astrolabe is definitely the most important . We are open to make all kind of customizations: laser engravings, new paper decorations, new animated strips, etc.
