Clockwork equatorial sundial
Date
29 November 1668
Creator
Johannes Hevelius (1611 - 1687, German/Polish) , Astronomer
Object type
Archive reference number
Manuscript page number
p8
Material
Dimensions
height (page): 335mm
width (page): 222mm
width (page): 222mm
Subject
Content object
Description
Design of a kind of mechanical clock which, 'by means of a pendulum, would instead of hands turn a pointer fitted with sights continually and pretty accurately towards the sun or fixed stars'. Johannes Hevelius sent this design 'by a friend' to Henry Oldenburg in a letter dated 29 November 1668, which was read at the meeting of the Royal Society on 17 December 1668. It is an equatorial sundial rotated by clockwork, which Oldenburg believed to be designed by the Italian instrument-maker Titio Livio Burattini (1617-1681), though there seems to be no evidence to confirm this (see The Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg, ed. Hall and Hall, vol. 5, pp. 190-92).
Object history
At the meeting of the Royal Society on 17 December 1668, ‘Mr. Oldenburg produced a letter to him from Hevelius, dated at Dantzick, November 29, 1668, N.S. giving an account of the late eclipse of the sun, November 4, N.S. as also the description of an engine, quae, to use his words, beneficio perpendiculi, loco indicis, regulam cum dioptris perpetuo et satis exacte ad solem stellasve fixas obvertit. This letter was ordered to be entered in the Letter-Book’ (Birch 2:336). Also mentioned on 7 January 1669 (Birch 2: 338).
Related fellows
Henry Oldenburg (1612 - 1677, German) , Scientific correspondent
Johannes Hevelius (1611 - 1687, German/Polish) , Astronomer
Johannes Hevelius (1611 - 1687, German/Polish) , Astronomer
Associated place