One consequence of this emphasis is that almost nothing is discussed that is not directly related to a picture in the book. So information about particular people or things is scattered about as dictated by picture placement. Alas, there is no caption. In the list of illustrations in the back of the book, I learn that the telescope was made somewhere in Italy by an unidentified maker around 1630. So it wasn't used by Galileo for any of his famous discoveries, although he might conceivably have owned or used it.
Armillary spheres are representations of the heavens as seen from Earth.
Astrolabes are much more complicated, and I must confess to being less than satisfied with my understanding of how they work after reading this book. But several, especially those from the Islamic world, are objects of great beauty, and when I next get to Chicago, I hope to go in person to see them.