Have you thought about making it look more akin to a medieval observatory without a telescope?
Due to their lack of miniaturization and having to make everything including the measuring apparati quite big, it would make for a quite a map. Take this for example:
http://galileo.rice.edu/images/things/mquadrant.gif
Tycho Brahe's observational castle was quite the marvel before it was burned to the ground.
The same large constructs used to measure light can be seen at these observatories as well.
http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Architectu...maiden.htm
http://www.123rf.com/photo_5149181_el-mi...exico.html
A spectacular and simple example of a solar observatory: http://ghiasabadi.com/niasar0_en.html
There's no need to copy these directly, but it would be quite nice to take some similarities between all of these pre-renaissance observatories. The most obvious of these is that there really isn't any sort of lens these people could use. Observation was done by building a place so that the person would have a very good line of sight away from anything that might obstruct the view. An iteration of this might look like a large elevated dome, with the exception of a large hole at the centre top and crevices designed to track the stars.
Others, more ancient like Stonehenge is also an observatory of sorts.
One other thing that might be of use is to understand that all of these observatories back then were built so that the person making said observations could have a spiritual experience. The stars and the planets back then were almost universally taken as something that had a lot to do with the divine or powerful spirits. When they climb the stairs in the Indian observatory and get to the top it's a very special moment for instance. The same can be said of the Chinese observatory. And perhaps also quite famously, the Mayan and Aztec temples too were used to observe the stars.
One other thing that's quite prominent in these observatories are the use of large stone curves. These are used by someone putting their eye at the bottom of the curve and measuring the height of the planets. Another person would take the measurements of the planet.
Due to their lack of miniaturization and having to make everything including the measuring apparati quite big, it would make for a quite a map. Take this for example:
http://galileo.rice.edu/images/things/mquadrant.gif
Tycho Brahe's observational castle was quite the marvel before it was burned to the ground.
The same large constructs used to measure light can be seen at these observatories as well.
http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Architectu...maiden.htm
![[+]](/images/collapse_collapsed.png "[+]")
Spoilerhttp://www.123rf.com/photo_5149181_el-mi...exico.html
A spectacular and simple example of a solar observatory: http://ghiasabadi.com/niasar0_en.html
There's no need to copy these directly, but it would be quite nice to take some similarities between all of these pre-renaissance observatories. The most obvious of these is that there really isn't any sort of lens these people could use. Observation was done by building a place so that the person would have a very good line of sight away from anything that might obstruct the view. An iteration of this might look like a large elevated dome, with the exception of a large hole at the centre top and crevices designed to track the stars.
Others, more ancient like Stonehenge is also an observatory of sorts.
One other thing that might be of use is to understand that all of these observatories back then were built so that the person making said observations could have a spiritual experience. The stars and the planets back then were almost universally taken as something that had a lot to do with the divine or powerful spirits. When they climb the stairs in the Indian observatory and get to the top it's a very special moment for instance. The same can be said of the Chinese observatory. And perhaps also quite famously, the Mayan and Aztec temples too were used to observe the stars.
One other thing that's quite prominent in these observatories are the use of large stone curves. These are used by someone putting their eye at the bottom of the curve and measuring the height of the planets. Another person would take the measurements of the planet.
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#2462148 SK_Mica ; Previously Fat_and_Ugly
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#2451456 SK_Hardy_Meat_Piston
#2432942 Raicho
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