Islamic celestial globe made in 718 AH [= 1318/19 CE] by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Burhān
al-Mawṣilī subsequently linked to the observatory of Ulugh Beg (Oxford, Museum for the History of Science, inv.
nr. 54471).
Of the various tables in the Zīj-i-Ṣultāni, the star catalogue (listing 1018 stars grouped in 48 constellations)
deserves special mention. The layout of the table is similar to that in earlier star tables, i.e. the stars and constellations are listed in the
same order as found in Claudius Ptolemy’s
Almagest, with a description of its position in the constellation, its
ecliptic longitude and latitude and its
stellar magnitude.
The stellar descriptions and magnitudes were copied from Nasīr
al-Dīn al-Tūsī’s Persian translation of the ??? of
???. Except for 27 southern stars, unobservable from the latitude of Samarkand, the stellar
longitudes and latitudes were for a large portion determined anew by observations made over several years in the Samarkand Observatory. The data
for the missing stars was copied from ???s star catalogue, after applying a longitude correction of
6° 59' for the precession.
The star catalogue from the Zīj-i-Ṣultāni was also adopted in the Zīj-i-Muḥammad Shāhī,
the last major collection of Islamic astronomical tables compiled between 1727 and 1735 under patronage of
Jai Singh II of Amber (1688-1743) and dedicated to the Mughal
emperor Muḥammad Shāh (1702-1748). The epoch of Jai
Singh’s star catalogue was 1 Muḥarram 1138 AH [= 8 September 1725], corresponding with a longitude increase of
4° 8'.
Editions and Studies of the Star Catalogue in the Zīj-i-Ṣultāni
Title page of Thomas Hyde’s edition (1665) of Ulugh Beg’s star catalogue.
Greaves, John, “Longitudines, & Latitudines, nonnullarum è præcipuis Stellis inerrantibus, ex Astronomicis observationibus
Ulug Beigi, nunc primùm à Johanne Gravio publicatæ”, in: John Bainbridge, Canicularia: Unà cum demonstratione Ortus
Sirii heliaci, Pro parallelo inferioris Ægypti (Oxford: Henry Hall, 1648), pp. 77-116
[EEBO link] –
catalogue of 98 stars drawn from his unpublished Tabulae integrae longitudinis et latitudinis stellarum fixarum juxta Ulug Beigi
observationes which he based on five Persian manuscripts and completed in 1643; cf. Thomas Birch (ed.), Miscellaneous Works of Mr. John
Greaves, Professor of Astronomy in the University of Oxford (London: J. Brindley & C. Corbett, 1737), vol. I, p. liv
[Internet Archive link].
Hyde, Thomas, Tabulæ Long[itudinis] ac Lat[itudinis] Stellarum Fixarum, ex Observatione Ulugh Beighi, Tamerlanis Magni Nepotis,
Regionum ultra citráque Gjihun (i. Oxum) Principis potentissimi. Ex tribus invicèm collatis MSS. Persicis jam primùm Luce ac
Latio donavit, & Commentariis illustravit (Oxford: Henry Hall, 1665) [Internet Archive link] – reprinted in Gregory Sharpe’s edition of the collected works of Thomas
Hyde (Oxford, Clarendon, 1767), vol. I, part III [??? link].
Hevelius, Johannes, Prodromus astronomiæ, Exhibens Fundamenta, quæ tam ad novum planè & correctiorem Stellarum Fixarum
Catalogum construendeum, quàm ad onmium Planetarum Tabulas corrigendas omnimodè spectant; nec non Novas & correctiores Tabulas
Solares, aliasque plurimas ad Astronomiam pertinentes, utpote Refractionum Solarium, Parallaxium, Declinationum, Angulorum Eclipticæ &
Meridiani, Ascensionum Rectarum & Obliquarum, Horizonti Gedanensi inservientium, Differentiarum Ascensionalium, Motus item &
Refractionum Stellarum Fixarum. Quibus additus est uterq[ue] Catalogus Stellarum Fixarum, tam major ad Annum 1660, quàm minor ad Annum
completum 1700. Acessit Corollarii loco Tabula Motus Lunæ Libratorii, ad bina secula proximè ventura prolongata, brevi cum Descriptione,
eiusque usu (Gdansk: Johannes-Zacharias Stol?, 1690) [E-RARA link].
Frontispieces of the star catalogue (1690) and star atlas
(1690) of the Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius honouring the great astronomers of the past. In the
left image Ulugh Beg is seen seated to the left of Urania and in the right image he is seen standing as the third astronomer from the
left.
Baily, Francis, The Catalogues of Ptolemy, Ulugh Beigh, Tycho Brahe, Halley, Hevelius, Deduced from the Best Authorities. With Various Notes
and Corrections, and a Preface to Each Catalogue. To Which is Added the Synonym of each Star, in the Catalogues of Flamsteed or Lacaille, as far
as the same can be ascertained (London: Royal Astronomical Society, 1843 [= Memoirs of the Royal
Astronomical Society,13]) [check] [ADS link].
Knobel, Edward Ball, “Notes on a Persian MS. of Ulugh Beigh’s Catalogue of Stars belonging to the Royal Astronomical Society”,
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 39 (1879), 337-363 [ADS link].
Peters, Christian Heinrich Friedrich, “Ueber Ulugh Beg’s Sterngrössen”, Astronomische Nachrichten, 99 (1881),
235-240 [nr. 2367] [ADS link].
Knobel, Edward Ball, Ulugh Beg’s Catalogue of Stars. Revised from all Persian Manuscripts Existing in Great Britain, with a
Vocabulary of Persian and Arabic Words (Washington: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1917 [= Publications of the Carnegie
Institution of Washington, nr. 250]) [Internet Archive
link] – edition based on 21 manuscripts (18 Persian and 3 Arabic) preserved in British collections.
Kunitzsch, Paul, “Star Catalogues and Star Tables in Mediaeval Oriental and European Astronomy”, Indian Journal of History of
Science, 21 (1986), 113-122 [INSA link] – reprinted in: P. Kunitzsch, The Arabs and the Stars: Texts and Traditions on the Fixed Stars, and
their Influence in Medieval Europe (Northampton: Variorum Reprints, 1989 [= Variorum Reprint, CS307]), nr. I.
Ševčenko, Mikhail Yu., “[Equality of Accuracies of Ptolemy’s and Ulugh-Beg Catalogues of Stars]”,
Astronomičeskij Cirkulâr, nr. 1526 (1988), 23-24 [ADS link].
Ševčenko, Mikhail Yu., “An Analysis of Errors in the Star Catalogues of Ptolemy and Ulugh Beg”, Journal for the History of
Astronomy, 21 (1990), 187-201 [ADS link].
Krisciunas, Kevin, “The Accuracy of the Measurements in Ulugh Beg’s Star Catalogue”, Bulletin of the American
Astronomical Society, 24 (1992), 1166-1167 [ADS link].
Krisciunas, Kevin, “A More Complete Analysis of the Errors in Ulugh Beg’s Star Catalogue”, Journal for the History of
Astronomy, 24 (1993), 269-280 [ADS link] –
reprinted in: Y. Hazırlayan & U.S. Boybeyi (eds.), Uluğ Bey ve Çevresi Uluslararası Sempozyumu Bildirileri
(Ankara, 30 Mayıs – 1 Haziran) (Ankara: Atatürk Kültür Merkezi, 1996), pp. 209-223.
Ranieri, Marcello [+ 14 co-authors], “Possible Astrophysical Use of the Ulugh Beg’s Observations”, in: Y. Hazırlayan
& U.S. Boybeyi (eds.), Uluğ Bey ve Çevresi Uluslararası Sempozyumu Bildirileri (Ankara, 30 Mayıs –
1 Haziran) (Ankara: Atatürk Kültür Merkezi, 1996), pp. 253-268.
Kunitzsch, Paul, “The Astronomer al-Sūfī as
a Source for Ulug Beg’s Star Catalogue (1437)”, in: Ž. Vesel,
H. Beikbaghaban & B. Thierry de Crussol des Epesse (eds.), La science dans le monde iranien à l’époque
islamique (Teheran: Institut Français de Recherche en Iran, 1998), pp. 41-47 – reprinted in P. Kunitzsch, Stars
and Numbers: Astronomy and Mathematics in the Medieval Arab and Western Worlds (Aldershot/Burlington: Ashgate Publishing, 2004 [= Variorum
Collected Studies Series, CS 791]), nr. XII.
Schwan, Heiner, “Die Tabellen von Ulugh Beg: Die Sternkataloge des Ptolemäus, Ulugh Beg und Tycho Brahe im Vergleich”,
Sterne und Weltraum, 41 (2002), nr. 9/10, 48-51 [ADS link].
Nickiforov, Michael G., “Unsuccessful Attempt for Dating the Ulugbeige’s Catalogue by the Method of Dambis and Efremov”,
Bulgarian Astronomical Journal, 11 (2009), 99-122 [ADS link].
Verbunt, Frank W.M. & van Gent, Robert H., “The Star Catalogues of Ptolemaios and Ulugh Beg: Machine-Readable Versions and
Comparison with the Modern Hipparcos Catalogue”, Astronomy & Astrophysics, 544 (2012), A31 [34 pp.]
[ADS link].
