My Father and I visited Oxford in June 2026, mainly to visit this Science History museum. Sadly on the day of our visit the top floor was closed, which just means we’ll have to come back another time to see the rest of it, but never fear – there were some fabulous items on display! https://www.hsm.ox.ac.uk has the full catalogue, but meanwhile let’s have a look at some highlights.
First up is this gorgeous Universal Astrolabe which was given to Queen Elizabeth 1 in 1559, by her friend Sir Robert Dudley. It’s one of the larger astrolabes I have seen.
This cabinet of delights includes telescopes, a sextant, and several Reflecting Circles. Never seen those before. They were used in both navigation and astronomy.
Close by was this Cometarium, used for showing the paths of specific comets. Never seen one of those before either. They also have a couple of Quadrants, including this ivory one.
Next up we have various telescopes and optical instruments. There are many with decorated tubes; they’re gorgeous. On the left is an example of this, a compound microscope made in 1715, covered in leather and vellum. On the right is the oldest surviving example of a Gregorian reflecting telescope, from 1710.
John Russell was an artist who spent over thirty years studying the Moon. He made this Moon Globe (left) in 1797 which has mechanical means to show the libration movement of the Moon. The back is blank, because nobody at that time had ever seen the back side of the Moon. He also painted this massive 4-foot-square portrait of the Moon which hangs over the main staircase in the Museum.
The Museum has many diptych sundials, mostly made in Germany, of ivory and brass, and dating from the 1600s.
They also had many books; from Germany and England, from 1562 to 1904, about astrolabes and timekeeping:
Here’s a tabletop version of those usually-much-smaller pendant sundials, and a Nocturnal.
And now for some Astrolabes… you knew they were coming! 😉
Let’s start with this one, from Spain in 1221; it’s the oldest one I saw there. Look at this. It’s about 5-6” in diameter, 800 years old and look at the fine-ness of that engraving. OK; it’s lost a few star pointers along the way but isn’t it fantastic?
Four more. I forgot to grab the label of the top left one. Top right came from France in 1560.
Bottom left is from 14th Century North Africa, bottom right came from Italy around 1500. The French and Italian ones actually have Roman characters rather than Arabic or Sanskrit, so we have half a chance at reading them, although it’s interesting to see how some of the star names have changed, for example Altair is Alkair on the Italian one. Both European ones seem to choose some quite different stars on their retes, too. (I can’t tell with the Arabic-script ones)
Here’s a couple with some details pulled out for you to see. The left hand astrolabe is from Mesopotamia in 1227. It is inlaid with silver and gold on the top, and has beautiful zodiac illustrations around the back. The right hand one is from Persia in 1647 and has a beautifully lightweight, thin rete which would obscure much less of the plate behind it than usual. I’ve also never seen characters built into a rete like that. Interestingly, the plate only seems to have lines of elevation, there’s no azimuth markings on this one.
OK; three more. These are all from Persia, from 1710 (main), 1481 (top right) and 1650 (bottom right). I love the one on the left; it has such a gloriously organic-looking rete. Too bad they’re all missing their rulers – it seems to be unusual for any astrolabe to retain the ruler; more often than not they go missing.
Down in the basement there were many fine exhibitions, including a blackboard from one of Einstein’s lectures with his hand-written equations on. There was a wall about Henry Moseley who developed X-ray spectroscopy. There’s a whole section about the discovery of Penicillin, and many other interesting items; clocks and barometers and all kinds of wonders.
Here’s a few more telescopes, with their wonderfully painted and patterned barrels. The vertical ones are microscopes. And then there’s this furniture-sized Orrery.
We didn’t have enough time in Oxford to explore a great deal; aside from seeing the main historic buildings downtown. I did not see any sundials; maybe I wasn’t looking in the right places. Next time!
On the bus back to the Park and Ride, one of the stops is outside Radcliffe Infirmary, upon which is this blue plaque. And the rest of Oxford will have to wait for my next visit.
