Because all the Harry Potter reading (I am on the 6th book, it´s my 14 time reading it, first ones I have read 18 times) and watching movies (AGAIN!), having this huge obsession about witchy stuff, old steampunkish things and getting my cabinet of curiosity bigger, I wanted make new wish list about.. well all of this awesome things!
I already have 1 minute hour glass and beautiful compass from Alnilam, so my wish list for my birthday or Yule is this.. very big list ha!
A nocturnal is an instrument used to determine the local time based on the relative positions of two or more stars in the night sky. Sometimes called a "horologium nocturnum" (time instrument for night) or nocturlabe (in French and occasionally used by English writers), it is related to the astrolabeand sun dial. Knowing the time is important in piloting for calculating tides and some nocturnals incorporate tide charts for important ports.
Even if the nightly course of the stars has been known since antiquity, the mentions of a dedicated instrument for its measurement are not found before the Middle Ages. The earlier image presenting the use of a nocturnal is in a manuscript dated from the 12th century.Raymond Lullrepeatedly described the use of a sphaera horarum noctis ou astrolabium nocturnum. Wikipedia
A sextant is a doubly reflecting navigation instrument used to measure the angle between any two visible objects. The principle of the instrument was first implemented around 1730 by John Hadley (1682–1744) and Thomas Godfrey (1704–1749) but it was also found later in the unpublished writings of Isaac Newton (1643–1727). The history of these and related instruments, and their forerunners, may be found in the article on reflecting instruments.
The primary use of a sextant is to determine the angle between an astronomical object and the horizon for the purposes of celestial navigation. The determination of this angle, the altitude, is known as sighting (or shooting) the object, or taking a sight. The angle, and the time when it was measured, can be used to calculate a position line on a nautical or aeronautical chart. Common uses of the sextant include sighting the sun at solar noon or Polaris at night (in the Northern Hemisphere) to determine latitude. Sighting the height of a landmark can give a measure of distance off and, held horizontally, a sextant can measure angles between objects for a position on a chart.A sextant can also be used to measure the lunar distancebetween the moon and another celestial object (such as a star or planet) in order to determine Greenwich Mean Time and hence longitude. Wikipedia
A storm glass is a type of weather forecasting device, composed of a sealed glass container filled with liquid. The appearance of the liquid purportedly predicts the weather, but most modern experiments have failed to confirm this. The liquid within the glass is a mixture of several ingredients, most commonly distilled water, ethanol, potassium nitrate, ammonium chloride, and camphor. This specific mixture was developed by Admiral Robert FitzRoy and used on HMS Beagle. Wikipedia
An armillary sphere (variations are known as spherical astrolabe, armilla, or armil) is a model of objects in the sky (in the celestial sphere), consisting of a spherical framework of rings, centred on Earth or the Sun, that represent lines of celestial longitude and latitude and other astronomically important features such as the ecliptic. As such, it differs from a celestial globe, which is a smooth sphere whose principal purpose is to map the constellations.
With the Earth as center, an armillary sphere is known as Ptolemaic. With the sun as center, it is known as Copernican.
The flag of Portugal features an armillary sphere. Wikipedia
The sunstone (Icelandic: sólarsteinn) is a type of mineral attested in several 13th–14th century written sources in Iceland, one of which describes its use to locate the sun in a completely overcast sky. Sunstones are also mentioned in the inventories of several churches and one monastery in 14th–15th century Iceland. A theory exists that the sunstone had polarizing attributes and was used as a navigationinstrument by seafarers in the Viking Age.
A stone found in 2013 off Alderney, in the wreck of a 16th-century warship, may lend evidence of the existence of sunstones as navigational devices. Wikipedia
A barometer is a scientific instrument used in meteorology to measure atmospheric pressure. Pressure tendency can forecast short term changes in the weather. Numerous measurements of air pressure are used within surface weather analysis to help find surface troughs, high pressure systems and frontal boundaries.
Barometers and pressure altimeters (the most basic and common type of altimeter) are essentially the same instrument, but used for different purposes. An altimeter is intended to be transported from place to place matching the atmospheric pressure to the corresponding altitude, while a barometer is kept stationary and measures subtle pressure changes caused by weather. The main exception to this is ships at sea, which can use a barometer because their elevation does not change. Due to the presence of weather systems, aircraft altimeters may need to be adjusted as they fly between regions of varying normalized atmospheric pressure. Wikipedia
