Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Prague Astronomical Clock

A discussion with Miroslav Brož, Astronomer at the Institute of Astronomy of Charles University, Prague and Franck Marchis, Senior Planetary Astronomer at the SETI Institute

Filmed live at the Orloj, the Prague Astronomical Clock built in 1410 and still operating. Not only is the clock still working, but it also shows the positions of the Sun and the Moon, as well as more information about the sky on its astrolabe. The Orloj can be considered a medieval planetarium, displaying the state of the universe with extreme accuracy, but it’s also a beautiful piece of art and machinery that has endured for 600 years.

Filmed by Josef Hanuš, Astronomer at the Institute of Astronomy of Charles University, Prague

[YodaMan]

Weird that we still see the same stars and tracked the movement of the sun and the moon 600 years ago. But apparently the earth is chasing the sun through space at supersonic speeds and the earth is spinning at an astonishing speed. But we still see the same stars and the moon and sun do the same pattern for over 600 years? The earth is not a sphere. Water level, sea level. It’s all level

[DividedWeFall]

Such an amazing place and astrological relic. Wonderful audio and the closed captions are spot on.
Simply wonderful work.
Thank you all for your time.
xD

[JamesWilliams-vqer]

Right at the start he states that the clock is a projection of a celestial sphere. That's funny the clock was built 133 years before the heliocentric theory was proposed by Copernicus in 1543 (the same year that he died). The zodiac dial (ecliptic dial) does not divide its 30 degree constellation arcs equally and it is off center from the map behind. Heliocentrism will state that the zodiac was built that way because of the earths tilted angle of rotation relative to its orbital plane. Nice story...Interesting how the constellations remain the same, yet we are told that the earth is travelling through the milky way galaxy at 700, 000 km/hr. The earth has been travelling for 612 years (5, 361, 120 hours) at 700, 000 km/hr and same stars are above us? Ok then...🤣

[AllPlanets]

Thanks for watching us. One small correction. The summer solstice in on June 21, not July. This confusion comes from "Červenec vs Červen" in Czech.
Feel free to ask for questions and clarifications.

[wenlanshen]

Finally found a good explanation about how this clock work! Nice video!

[Zappa]

He´s got the tropics reversed. The projection is from the south pole, so the outer circle is the Tropic of Cancer, and the inner one is Capricorn.

[sergiopardo]

That’s Amazing Amazing and Super Amazing

[monkeyspankman]

The clock is actually a live diagram of the local sky, and mirrors a horoscope. Both are based on an observer centric view, since that is necessary for the instrument to accurately reflect what is visible in the sky in Prague at any given moment. Observer centric view is neither a geocentric sky diagram or a heliocentric diagram, it is based solely on the local observer point perspective.

[Misteraitch]

nice to see a so-called expert spout utter rot about the clock having Antarctica in the middle of it. Originally it displayed a flat earth map, which was later changed to an inverted version of the mercator projection, until its latest reincarnation which features a shiny gold globe - because they don't want people to ask questions now do they?

[europeanambience]

Great explanation. I binaural recorded the bells last weekend. Sounds amazing

[sandralarsen]

"Mikuláš of Kadaň was an Imperial clockmaker. The oldest part of the Orloj, the mechanical clock and astronomical dial, dates back to 1410, was designed by Mikuláš of Kadaň and Jan Šindel."

[sunshine]

You could have explained better if you take a picture of the clock and show it.

[JohnDlugosz]

The only clock in Europe that shows the phases of the moon: But does the rotation take into account the eccentricity of the orbit, like the Antikythera Mechanism that was built 2000 years ago?

[edicon]

In wikipedia says it was happening a lot around 1550 sure when copernicus change the true geocentricni model to jeusits heliocentric fake model

[andymcgibbon]

600 years compared to the age of the universe, why would you expect to see changes?

[christophermoon]

So he's saying the earth is flat?

[ypey]

Either the explanation is poor or i am not smart enough, but i still have no idea how to read this clock...

[ministryofyahushua]

Thanks. The earth is flat, well actually concave.

[prasw]

Bro called themself an institute but so afraid to telling the truth. Both of them know the clocks is based on fe map. But they decided choose the lies

[LordDeBahs]

they changed front plate . plate with globe picture was added 10 years ago . so desperate lol