Ingenuity and Beauty: astrolabe study day

The astrolabe was the most iconic of early astronomical instruments: it promised to bring the heavens literally into your hands.

In partnership with Oxford's History of Science Museum, the Centre for Islamic Studies has staged an exhibition Lines of Faith: Astronomy and the Art of the Astrolabe in the Islamic World. This study day provides a hands-on accompaniment to the exhibition.

Participants will each assemble and learn to use their own customised laser-cut modern astrolabe, to take home afterwards.

You will also get to try your hand at the metalworking techniques needed to shape the historical examples in the exhibition, from sawing and filing, to riveting and shaping.

The session gives a taste of the way that the astrolabe embodied science, religion, art and craft in one exquisite object.

The ticket price includes both a sandwich lunch and afternoon tea and coffee.