El arte de observar el cielo. El levantamiento del primer observatorio astronómico de las Américas = The art of observing the sky. The survey of the first astronomical observatory of the Americas

Bogota’s Astronomical Observatory, the first in America, built by Fray Domingo Petrés at the beginning of the 19th century, carries an implicit load of knowledge that provides contributions and reveals facts, practices, and construction methods from its time. Therefore, carrying out a rigorous architectural survey by means of laser scanning in this remarkable building, becomes an invaluable source of new knowledge. The construction of the historical background makes it possible to demonstrate the origins of the construction and the methods of graphic representation through: (1) iconographic sources, which contribute to a hypothetical timeline for the restitution; (2) documentary inputs such as the descriptions of Caldas (1808) and the contributions of Gutiérrez et al, (1999), which record the use of manuals as well as the expressive form with which he constructed and determined his idea; and (3) the different versions of compared restitution, where the ideal geometries of the observatory appear. © 2024 Universidad Politecnica de Valencia. All rights reserved.