Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi was a Persian astronomer who lived from 903 to 986. At a time
when Greek an Roman astronomy fell victim to the Dark Ages, al-Sufi produced the first detailed update of Ptolemy's
Almagest in over 800 years.
Al-Sufi's Book of Fixed Stars, first published in 964 was a successful synthesis of the
comprehensive star catalogue in Ptolemy’s Almagest with the indigenous Arabic astronomical traditions on the constellations. It contained detailed
Illustrations. Each constellation was shown twice, first in mirror image, as it would appear on a celestial globe, and in the way it actually appears
in the sky.
Al-Sufi's drawings were not the first artistic interpretations of the legends behind the constellations but he was the first to correctly combine a star map with
with a picture. Earlier works like the Leiden Aratea had little or no relation to the actual
locations of the stars in a certain constellation - they were, as Ian Ridpath puts it,
simple "...a decorative accompaniment to literary texts, with no pretensions to scientific accuracy." Al-Sufi's work was, in the words of Ian Ridpath,
"... the first scientific depictions of the Ptolemaic constellations, over 800 years after the Almagest was written."
Al-Sufi's original work is lost, but the Bodleian Library, Oxford
hosts a copy that is believed to be written and illustrated by al-Sufi's son Ibn al-Ṣūfī 24 years after his father’s
death. Some scholars doubt the provenance, but still it is a remarkable treasure of astronomical history.
These drawings are somewhat faded. Of the two available for each constellation, we choose the one that was visibly in better condition.
There are later, more colorful reproductions of al-Sufi's work (like the one we used in the headline),
but here, we concentrate exclusively on screenshots from the online publication of the Bodleian Library.
Sources: Wikipedia, Ian Ridpath
The images are faint. Click on the pictures for larger images.
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