ROCHESTER, N.Y. – The total eclipse is three weeks from Monday. The last time Rochester was in the path of totality was about 100 years ago.

Deep in the archives at the University of Rochester, News10NBC got access to books on the eclipse and astronomy that date back 500 years.

“We have this wonderful plate here with what I think is an astrolabe,” said Melissa Mead opening a book on astronomy inside the U of R archives.

The astrolabe is an ancient tool to chart the stars. And Mead is the John M. & Barbara Keil University Archivist & Rochester Collections Librarian. The book she was handling was published in 1482, 10 years before Christopher Columbus sailed the Atlantic Ocean.

“This book is the Introductorium in Astronomiam,” she said flipping through the next book.
 
It was written in 1489 by an astronomer in what is now Afghanistan. The next book was printed in 1653 with a text from Galileo. A facsimile of a large book printed in 1540’s would have been a combination calculator and pop-up book. You move the dials, pull the string and plot out when something astronomical would happen. At the time it was produced, the author believed the sun circled the earth.

“So he’s wrong about that,” Mead said. “But the calculations and how to do them are correct.”
 
The books are a glimpse at how people looked at and thought about the sun, moon and stars. 

Berkeley Brean: “Is there a favorite one of yours there?”

Melissa Mead: “I try not to play favorites.”

Berkeley Brean: “Come on now, you’ve got to have one.”

Melissa Mead: “Well I think the facsimile with the vovels is really cool because if it were the real thing, I don’t think we would be shifting those discs around very often. Whereas with the facsimile you can actually do things with it.”

The U of R archives include an astronomy and eclipse book for “Young Ladies” and a series of plates that would have been used in classrooms. They were like eclipse apps in the 1840’s.

“It might be far-fetched to say they are an app except that they do things,” Mead said picking one up and holding it in front of a window. “This was the phases of the moon and when you held it up to the window you would be able to see the light through it.”

Some of the books were purchased. Many were gifts from William Harkness, a U of R grad who took eclipse photos just after the Civil War and his work led to landmark discoveries of the sun’s corona, the outer edge only visible in an eclipse.

Berkeley Brean: “Does this change how you are going to experience the eclipse?” I asked.
 
Melissa Mead: “For me, at the beginning of the whole run up to the eclipse I was kind of like meh? But now it’s really cool.”

The books will be on display in the Rare Books and Special Collections section of the Rush Rhees Library from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on April 3 through April 10, except Saturdays and Sundays.

Any member of the public can request to view the books at any time. For more information, call 585-275-4477.