Astrolabe Kit

The cardstock student-quality astrolabe is actually very well done. I am quite pleased with it. That part gets four or five stars.The "instructions" are some elementary-school science teacher's overhead-projection slides. They tell you nothing -- not even how to assemble the device. It boggles the mind. I have to assume that the meticulous, technical person who created the astrolabe itself was struck dead by lightning, and his drug-crazed little brother finished up the project. Fortunately, there are astrolabe instructions on the internet that apply well-enough to this unit.As for the price, $16.95 beats the heck out of $199.

This was a Christmas gift to my husband and I was disappointed to see that it was just paper with assembly required. That was not made clear on the listing.

Not as it appears! Yes, the description says that it is a kit which requires assembly but no where does it state that this is just paper and some cardboard. The picture makes it look metallic and it certainly is not. I tried to return but was unable to. Do not buy if you actually want a good-looking astrolabe.

The problem here is not that the astrolabe is made of paper. It is, but it's durable and pretty cool. Unfortunately, the instructions are horrible. 18 pages that look as if put together in a half-hour. Huge fonts mean that each page has about 25 words. Many of the fonts are so huge that they drive some of the words off the page! Who made this? There are very few instructions, mostly quizzes on how to find this star or that, how to measure time from the sun. Really worthless instructions. Luckily, you can learn how to use your astrolabe online.

I love antique scientific instruments especially astrolabes so getting this kit was a natural. I do have to question the price (and the shipping!) For a something printed on cardstock 16.95 is just at the outer edge of acceptable.. what got me was the shipping, 12.95!!! This must have been in part for the 224 page catalog that was included! I think rethinking the packing for this kit should be in order to at the very least make the shipping more reasonable...At any rate I plane to glue the cardstock astrolabe parts to some 1/4 inch foam core board and make it more substantial!

This is a cool learning aid that helps teach the basics of ancient celestial navigation. It comes with an instructional powerpoint that walks you through the operation of the astrolabe. I wish its building instructions were a little clearer, there was a bit of question as to what I was supposed to do at times. I'd give it 5 stars, but it's limited in the astral charts that it comes with to 1; astrolabes require multiple interchangeable dials for different latitudes - if you're at a different latitude than the dial it comes with, you're out of luck for experimenting with the device.

While this is an educational item, I feel that the price is a bit too high.I would love to see this pattern turned into a metal version!

I think that this astrolabe is very good looking and highly functional, I have s yet to try and us it once or twice to see how well it works. It is also a great conversation piece to set on your coffee table or den display case. It arrived very quickly after ordering and got here without any incident.