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Credit: Tim Feresten
Explanation:
Walk through
these doors and up the stairs to begin your journey along
a line from Jaipur, India toward the
North Celestial Pole.
Such cosmic alignments abound in
marvelous
Indian observatories where the architecture itself allows
astronomical measurements.
The structures were
built
in Jaipur and other cities in
the eighteenth century by the Maharaja
Jai Singh II (1686-1743).
Rising about 90 feet high, this stairway
actually forms a shadow caster or
gnomon, part
of what is still perhaps the largest
sundial on planet
Earth.
Testaments to Jai Singh II's passion for astronomy,
the design and large scale of his
observatories' structures still provide impressively accurate
measurements of
shadows and sightings
of celestial angles.
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Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: Observatory
Publications with words: Observatory
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