Fig 8 - uploaded by Wayne Orchiston
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3 Two of the 13th individual star maps that make up the Dunhuang Star Atlas. Top: Orion (Star Map 5), showing the Western constellation; on the left are additional calendar texts, while culmination texts are towards the bottom of the map. Bottom: The North Circumpolar region (Star Map 13) (after BonnetBidaud et al. 2009: 43 and 46 respectively)
Source publication
China had a long tradition of astronomy. But, like in other cultures, astronomy in ancient China was essentially positional. The study of the physical nature of celestial bodies has only been a recent development. Knowledge about astrophysics began to be transmitted to China in the middle of the nineteenth century by Western Christian missionaries....
Citations
... Spanish Jesuits were responsible for establishing Manila Observatory in 1865 (Fig. 2.53) as part of their nineteenth century quest to set up a world-wide network on observatories (Udias, 2003). So Manila Observatory joined the sister institutions Xujiahui and Shesan Observatories in Shanghai, China (Ning et al., 2017) and Riverview Observatory, in Sydney, Australia (Orchiston, 1985). The primary function of Manila Observatory was to conduct research on and provide warning of cyclones. ...
In this chapter we discuss the major environmental changes that occurred in the Philippine region over the last 70,000 years, the arrival of different human populations, and our knowledge of their astronomical systems. We then identify future areas of research that we believe are important in fleshing out the changing nature of astronomical beliefs and practices throughout the Philippine archipelago. Because this region of island Southeast Asia is a unique field laboratory, some of the research projects outlined—especially in ethnoastronomy—have the potential to make an important contributions to international scholarship in the history of astronomy field. But, as elsewhere in the world, the nature of ethnoastronomy is changing rapidly, with on-going acculturation and elderly custodians of knowledge dying without passing on astronomical lore to younger generations, so some of the research projects suggested here must be carried out now, or not at all. The window of opportunity is closing rapidly, and never is the cherished motto of our ASEAN History and Heritage Working Group, “It’s Now or Never”, more appropriate.
Japan was one of a number of nations that made important contributions
in the fledgling field of radio astronomy in the years immediately
following WWII. In this paper we discuss the invention of the Yagi-Uda
antenna and the detection of solar radio emission in 1938, before
reviewing radio astronomical developments that occurred between 1948 and
1961 in Osaka, Nagoya, Tokyo and Hiraiso. In order to place these early
Japanese experiments in a national and international context we briefly
review the world-wide development of radio astronomy in the immediate
post-War years before discussing the growth of optical astronomy in
Japan at this time.
