Leonardo's Astronomy

Eli Whitney Museum

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Thumbnail of Leonardo's Astronomy project

Vacation Program

  • Tuesday, February 19, 2013
  • 9:00 am – 3:00 pm
  • Designed for ages 9 to 13

Special thanks: Heidi Herrick and the Leitner Planetarium at Yale.

Leonardo was born just two years after Christopher Columbus, and not far from Columbus' Genoa. Leonardo's astronomical drawings make it clear that no educated Italian thought the world was flat. We will visit the Leitner Planetarium at Yale to see the heavens as observers before Galileo saw them.

Build a model of earthshine, one of Leonardo's most original observations. Construct a lens device that some think is an early telescope. Understand the power of Leonardo's eye gazing upward.


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