Holy shrine museum displays celestial spheres, rare telescopes 

Talking about the event, Abdolhossein Malek Jafarian, head of Astan Qods Razavi’s Treasure Department, said: “AQR’s astronomy treasure is one of the highly attractive treasures especially for the younger generation.  It was founded when renowned Iranian astrologer Seyyed Jalaleddin Tehrani donated the data-x-items to the museum.”
Malek Jafarian added: “Among these works, a celestial sphere made in UK can be mentioned. This sphere, made of wood and paper in 1857, has a height of 36 centimeters and a diameter of 23 centimeters. This sphere has been made by Newton and Boys company”.
He went on to say: “Orbits of this sphere have been based with 10-degree precision and its meridians have been fixed based on 30-degree ecliptics and the equator of 15 degrees.
“The base of the sphere is also made of two wood and brass sections, with the brass section from the equator to the poles from 0 to 90 degrees and the degree of star determined by 6 conventional units”.
Malek Jafarian further noted: “Another important celestial sphere at the collection was made by Edward Stanford in England in 1860”.
According to Malek Jafarian there is also a celestial sphere in Imam Reza Shrine’s museum, which was made by Iranian national Hashem Mousavi. “This sphere has a height of 34 cm and a diameter of 18 cm.”
He continued: "The cardboard surface of the sphere is covered with wax and oil. Names of astrological months, poles, and some of the circuitry and their names are visible on the sphere. Manufacturer's name is also seen on the metal base of the sphere”.
“The celestial sphere of Dr. Seyyed Jalaleddin Tehrani is also considerable. This sphere has been made up of ivory with a 7.5-centimeter diameter in Brussels”.
Noting that this sphere contains some important stars of northern and southern constellations with their direction of movement, he stated: “This great work of science has also a Persian poem about astronomy on it as well”.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Malek Jafarian said: “In addition to celestial spheres, some valuable telescopes are also maintained in AQR museum. a refractor telescope made in UK and a reflective one made in France are among these valuable objects”. 
He added: “This refractor telescope has a total length of 91 cm. The length of its tube is 3.82 cm, diameters of one of its lenses is 3.7 cm and the other one is 1.9 cm. This brass telescope has been made in London”.
The official said that the reflective telescope has 79 cm of general length with a 7.86 length of its tube. The height of its legs is 42 cm and diameter of its eye lens is 5.3 cm. This telescope has been made of brass in Paris in 18th century”. 
All those interested may have a virtual visit of these data-x-items on http://digimuseum.razavi.ir .