AstroRara – Picturing heavens through time
Explore historical astronomical illustrations interactively with the new app
Have you ever wondered how scientists of centuries past observed and documented celestial events?
AstroRara, the new app from ETH Library, shows you how the creators of illustrations found in rare and historic documents intended them to be used. Take an interactive journey of discovery through the the works of astronomers Peter Apian (1495–1552), Christoph Scheiner (1575–1650) and Johannes Hevelius (1611–1687).
In AstroRara, learn more about the models and the phenomena they observed. Short texts about the authors and their illustrations provide additional background information. Audio files are also available, so you can listen to the texts.
The old books collection of ETH Library includes around 75,000 volumes of monographs and newspapers that were published between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries. The collection mostly comprises texts on the subjects of astronomy and mathematics.