The Timurid ruler and astronomer whose Samarkand observatory and star catalogue were the most accurate of their age — a rare scholar-king, murdered by his own son.
Life
Ulugh Beg (1394–1449), grandson of Timur, governed Samarkand and made it a center of science, building a great observatory with a giant sextant and gathering astronomers whose Zij-i Sultani — a catalogue of over a thousand stars and precise planetary tables — surpassed all predecessors and stood unmatched until Tycho Brahe. A far greater scholar than statesman, he was overthrown and murdered on the order of his own son in 1449. He is remembered as one of history's foremost observational astronomers.