Message #28674

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THE ISTANBUL OBSERVATORY





The most influential observatory, however, was the Maragheh observatory founded by Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī under the patronage of Hulegu Khan in the 13th century. Here, al-Tusi supervised its technical construction at Maragheh.

The facility contained resting quarters for Hulagu Khan, as well as a library and mosque. Some of the top astronomers of the day gathered there, and from their collaboration resulted important modifications to the Ptolemaic system over a period of 50 years.

In 1420, prince Ulugh Beg, himself an astronomer and mathematician, founded another large observatory in Samarkand, the remains of which were excavated in 1908 by Russian teams.

And finally, Taqi al-din bin Ma'ruf founded a large observatory in Istanbul in 1575, which was on the same scale as those in Maragha and Samarkand.

In modern times, Turkey has many well equipped observatories, while Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, UAE, Tunisia, and other Arab states are also active as well.

Iran has modern facilities at Shiraz University and Tabriz University. In Dec 2005, Physics Today reported of Iranian plans to construct a "world class" facility with a 2.0 m telescope observatory in the near future