Steve’s Virtual Planet

Star names & their origin - part two

A few posts ago I started to take an overview of Star names & their origin. As I said at the outset, this series will be more of a reference post since the literature on this topic is vast and not worth trying to recreate. The adage I follow to all the knowledge in the world - “you don’t have to know everything about everything, you just need to know how to locate it”. Anyhow, back to the topic of star names, in this case, the mysterious world of Chinese astronomy and Indian astronomy.

If you follow the links above, you will travel back to the early days of Asian astronomy, although, much of it is rather obscure. The historical record is harder to penetrate but still enough is known to inspire a sense of wonder at the precision of these earlier sky watchers. In both China and India, scholars looked at the sky above and continued to attempt to connect the world below. Their religious, astrological, mathematical and philosophical disciplines were intertwined with their viewpoints of the heavens.

As with many cultures around the world at various times, the practical nature of far eastern astronomy had a lot to do with creating and refining calendars. However, an even greater effort was put into creating some of the earliest star maps and catalogs. The results were usually hand printed with colorful illustrations and icons. The star maps are especially valuable since they occasionally notate a rare transient observation like a comet or even supernovae.

When you scan the link pages above, look carefully at the dates and compare them to the times of the Arab and Greek astronomers. Also see how there was a rich exchange of knowledge between Indian, Chinese and Islamic astronomers for many centuries. Some of this was bound to have had an eventual effect on the burgeoning Renaissance that would develop in Europe.

I’ll leave it to you to drill down into hyperlinks and go exploring back in time. I promise that along the way you will find yourself marveling at the skill and wisdom of those past astronomers. Enjoy the journey!