It had a removable wooden roof, thus making it the forerunner of today's domed observatories. The astrolabe within the structure completed one rotation in a day, and in this sense it was also the forerunner of the timepiece-driven tracking mechanisms used in modern observatories.
由於它的屋頂是活動木板，可以摘除，是現今圓頂天文台的發端。渾儀的旋轉，一晝夜一周，則是天文台跟蹤機械「轉移鐘」的始祖。