Celestial Mirror

“A new approach: wide-field photography and immersive spherical panorama technique . . . bestows the interested reader with the impression that s/he is in direct touch with the observatories’ environments. . . . Such an approach deserves to be imitated and extended to other surviving astronomical heritage sites around the globe.”—S. Mohammad Mozaffari, Journal for the History of Astronomy

“I cannot imagine what an alien landing next to these mysterious observatories, the Jantar Mantars, would think! Thankfully we have Perlus’s beautiful book, which allows us to see and understand the cross-cultural breadth of astronomy.”—Anthony Aveni, author of Star Stories: Constellations and People

“This is what we need to understand about [the Jantar Mantars]; this is why they were made; this is why they need to be experienced and celebrated. They are of immeasurable value to help anyone so inclined to set off on quests of self‑discovery and personal interpretation.”—Anisha Shekhar Mukherji, from her essay “Time and Space in the Jantar Mantars”

“This is an absolutely fascinating presentation, and a major contribution to the history of cultural astronomy in India. The author’s spectacular photographs of the instruments and the clarity of his explanations are a delight.”—Simon Mitton, University of Cambridge

“This exquisite volume transports the reader to four fantastical observatories where the outsized instruments—free of lenses, mirrors, cameras, or telescopes—take the spiritual and scientific measure of the heavens.”—Dava Sobel, author of Longitude, Galileo’s Daughter, and The Glass Universe

“Viewing Barry Perlus’s striking, immersive photography transports you to the Jantar Mantars of India. The clear text and diagrams elucidate the workings of Maharaja Jai Singh’s gigantic structures.”—Mark SubbaRao, president of the International Planetarium Society