The great brass sextant of Johannes Hevelius, portrayed here observing with his second wife Elisabetha. Six feet in radius, this instrument was closely modeled on Tycho's great sextant.
Hevelius' azimuthal quadrant. An ingenious system of counterweights allowed a single observed to manipulate the instrument while taking readings.
Hevelius, J. 1647, Selenographia: sive, Lunae Descriptio [Facsimile, Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York, 1967].Hoskin, M. 1997, The Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy.
-Written and last revised 12 November 1998 by paulchar@ucar.edu.
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