Monday, September 17, 2012

Sexy Astronomers of History [No. 3]

Collect 'em all!

Ibn Yunis
(c. 950-1009)
Birthplace:  Egypt (assumed)
Culture-shaping Contribution:  Collected his celestial observations in a volume, al-Zij al-Kabir al-Hakimi. Half the collection has survived the millennium that's since passed and his calculations are considered incredibly accurate, including predictions of eclipses and conjunctions.
Fun fact:  Yunis, whose full name is Abu al-Hasan 'Ali ibn 'Abd al-Rahman ibn Ahmad ibn Yunus al-Sadafi al-Misri, used a large -- as in 4.5 feed wide -- astrolabe to work out his calculations. Since we don't have a picture of Yunis, we've included a picture of an astrolabe instead.