17 Facts About Chinese astronomy

1.

The Ancient Chinese astronomy people have identified stars from 1300BCE, as Chinese astronomy star names later categorized in the twenty-eight mansions have been found on oracle bones unearthed at Anyang, dating back to the mid-Shang Dynasty.

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2.

Chinese astronomy was equatorial, centered on close observation of circumpolar stars, and was based on different principles from those in traditional Western astronomy, where heliacal risings and settings of zodiac constellations formed the basic ecliptic framework.

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3.

The Chinese astronomy used a lunisolar calendar, but as the cycles of the Sun and the Moon are different, leap months had to be inserted regularly.

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4.

Chinese astronomy calendar was considered to be a symbol of a dynasty.

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5.

Chinese astronomy is often represented as one of the "Three Schools Astronomical tradition" along with Gan and Shi.

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6.

Chinese astronomy astronomers recorded 1,600 observations of solar and lunar eclipses from 750 BCE.

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7.

Besides star maps, the Chinese astronomy made celestial globes, which show stars' positions like a star map and can present the sky at a specific time.

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8.

Chinese astronomy was notable for his translation of the Navagraha calendar into Chinese.

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9.

Islamic influence on Chinese astronomy was first recorded during the Song dynasty when a Hui Muslim astronomer named Ma Yize introduced the concept of 7 days in a week and made other contributions.

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10.

Several Chinese astronomy astronomers worked at the Maragheh observatory, founded by Nasir al-Din al-Tusi in 1259 under the patronage of Hulagu Khan in Persia.

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11.

Chinese astronomy was known as "Zhama Luding" in China, where, in 1271, he was appointed by Khan as the first director of the Islamic observatory in Beijing, known as the Islamic Astronomical Bureau, which operated alongside the Chinese Astronomical Bureau for four centuries.

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12.

Translation of two important works into Chinese astronomy was completed in 1383: Zij and al-Madkhal fi Sina'at Ahkam al-Nujum, Introduction to Astrology.

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13.

In 1384, a Chinese astronomy astrolabe was made for observing stars based on the instructions for making multi-purposed Islamic equipment.

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14.

The telescope was first mentioned in Chinese astronomy writing by Manuel Dias the Younger, who wrote his Tian Wen Lue in 1615.

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15.

Jesuit China missions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries brought Western Chinese astronomy, then undergoing its own revolution, to China and—via Joao Rodrigues's gifts to Jeong Duwon—to Joseon Korea.

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16.

The Chinese astronomy often were fundamentally opposed to this as well, since the Chinese astronomy had long believed that the celestial bodies floated in a void of infinite space.

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17.

The astronomers used Chinese astronomy to predict invasions or dangerous moments within the empire.

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