Celestial Globe

Astronomy

This is a large, blue celestial globe standing on a circular base. The base is made of grey plastic, with a metal ring around the circumference of the round base. Rising from the centre of the base is central pillar that supports a semi-circular ring on the bottom half of the globe: this is broad and rounded on the outside edge.

Fitted into the inner edge of this is a metal ring (the meridian) that runs around the full circumference of the globe on the vertical. The interior meridian ring can be slid inside the semi-circular support ring so the globe can be fully rotated on this axis. The ring is broader on the exterior edge, and on the marked with a raised scale on both sides of the interior edge, graduated in degrees and labelled in tens. The top of the ring is labelled “COLATITUDE”.

Running around the equator of the globe is there is a broad wooden horizontal ring (the horizon band). This has a multi-coloured paper label stuck to its upper surface and divided into various concentric rings. The outermost ring is divided into even segments labelled with the months. Inside this there are rounded rectangles of even size labelled with the names of the zodiac constellations and images showing associated animals or symbols. Inside this there is a narrower ring labelled with the cardinal directions. Inside this, there are a pair of narrower rings segmented in tens of degrees. Of these two, the outer ring is labelled “AZIMUTH FROM NORTH POINT”, the inner “AZIMUTH”.

The globe is connected to the metal meridian ring at the north and south poles and can be rotated at these connection points. The globe’s background is a mid-blue over the entirety of its surface. The globe is covered with a black grid pattern printed in black ink. Stars and other celestial objects are depicted as dots or star shapes depending on their brightness; particularly bright objects are shown with a white circle around the exterior of the star shape. Some contellations are outlined with dotted lines, and areas of the sky are outlined in solid dark blue lines and labelled in blue writing. The equator, eclipic, and solstial and equinoctial colures are marked as broader black lines.

At the top of the the globe there is a circular metal piece curved to fit the globe’s surface and resting on it, a portion of which is inset from the rest. This is graduated into 24 portions and marked with the numbers 1 through 12 twice. One side is marked “A.M.” the other “P.M.”