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Across the road from the
palaces is the famous JANTAR MANTAR one of the five observatories in
India . Built by Sawai Jai Singh, this is one of the largest and the
best preserved. A passionate hobby of the king in the field of
Astronomy, numerology, insighted him to execute this observatory and
with the help of skilled labourers, they managed to create a
collection of complex astronomical instruments chiselled out of
stone and most of which continues to provide accurate information to
this day. The most striking instrument is the Brihat Samrat yantra
Sundial, an imposing yellow edifice to the far right of the
observatory complex which has a 27m high gnomon arm set at an angle
of 27degree.The shadow this casts moves up to 4m in an hour, and
aids in the calculation of local and meridian pass time and various
attributes of the heavenly bodies, including declination the angular
distance of a heavenly body from the celestial equator and altitude.
This highlight of the observatory has made it a centre of attraction
for the tourist visiting Jaipur.
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