The Astrolabe by James E Morrison

First, if you're interested at all in astrolabes, this is the single best, most informative, most comprehensive book I've found. It's clear, concise and well illustrated. I'm very tempted to use the chapter on stereographic projections in my GIS classes.

It doesn't have many illustrations of historic instruments, but that's not it's focus. You can find those in the Time Museum or Western Astrolabes book and get more nuts and bolts info about the production process from Scientific Instruments of Elizabethan England. But for creating and using an astrolabe, you can't find a better reference- UNLESS you really want to use period processes. He doesn't even try to show how it was done, dismissing it with "Readers interested in the mathematical approach used in the Middle Ages are referred to Thomson for a thorough treatment"- that would be the translation of de Plana Spera. As I keep telling my daughter, life gets boring if you don't have anything to long for. I'll start saving the (argh!) $150 for that next.

The contents (with the exception of using trig instead of geometry to create the layout) is exceptional. The actual book is less so. I plan on using this heavily and I don't think it's going to hold up to that kind of use. The paperback cover is glued to the front and back pages to try to give it some stability, but the glue is already losing its hold. The pages themselves are glued in rather than bound. I know there wasn't a real choice in that, but it's a thick book and it's not going to hold up well- think of the Calvin and Hobbes collectors' editions. The paper is already yellowing and I just got it last week. I *know* these choices had to be made to keep the cost of the book down to something that wouldn't make people scream, but I'm going to take it to Kinkos and have it drilled so I can capture it inside a 3 ring binder. I'm not going to risk losing any of the pages. It has enough white space to make that feasible and still have room left over for notes.