Horloge astronomique de Strasbourg - Astronomische Uhr im Straßburger Münster

67000 Strasbourg, France (Grand Est)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
An astronomical clock is a clock with special mechanisms and dials to display astronomical information, such as the relative positions of the sun, moon, zodiacal constellations, and sometimes major planets.
 

Strasbourg astronomical clock

The Strasbourg astronomical clock is located in the Cathédrale Notre-Dame of Strasbourg, Alsace, France. It is the third clock on that spot and dates from the time of the first French possession of the city (1681–1870). The first clock had been built in the 14th century, the second in the 16th century, when Strasbourg was a Free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire.

The current, third clock dates from 1843. Its main features, besides the automata, are a perpetual calendar (including a computus), an orrery (planetary dial), a display of the real position of the Sun and the Moon, and solar and lunar eclipses. The main attraction is the procession of the 18 inch high figures of Christ and the Apostles which occurs every day at half past midday while the life-size cock crows thrice.
 

Third clock

The second clock stopped working around 1788 and stood still until 1838, when Jean-Baptiste Schwilgué (1776–1856) started to build the current clock. He designed new mechanisms to replace the old ones and which were meant to be state of the art. Schwilgué had wanted to work on the clock since his boyhood, but he only got the contract 50 years later. In the meantime, he had become acquainted with clockmaking, mathematics, and mechanics. He spent one year preparing his 30 workers before actually starting construction. Then, construction lasted from 1838 until June 24, 1843. The clock, however, was inaugurated on December 31, 1842.

This clock contains probably the first perpetual mechanical Gregorian computus, designed by Schwilgué in 1816. In the 1970s, Frédéric Klinghammer built a reduced replica of it
 

Model

In 1887, a 25-year-old Sydney watchmaker named Richard Smith built a working model of the third clock in the scale 1:5. Having never seen the original, Smith had to work from a pamphlet which described its timekeeping and astronomical functions. This model is now on show in the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, Sydney, Australia.

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