After a very short introduction about the origin & the evolution of the astrolabe through ages, we go into the basic geometry behind its design and construction.
This involves:
1- the therory of STEREOGRAPHIC PROJECTION with two simple properties that we prove,
2- simple ANALYTIC GEOMETRY,
3- OBLIQUE CONE THEORY according to LEGENDRE.
We then explore the details of designing an astrolabe PLATE according to ancient constructors technics and today's technology using Maple powerful plotting engine. This resuls in a beautiful PLATE and on top of it the RETE. (See Figure below).
As a whole the article is a good exercise in Maple programming and a way to stimulate further interest in Astronomy.