Наше деловое партнерство www.banwar.org

Ця стародавня китайська карта зоряного неба - частина китайського зоряного атласу (Dunhuang Star Atlas), одного з найбільш значущих документів в історії астрономії. Відома приблизна дата завершення робіт над атласом, 649-684. Недавній аналіз зоряних карт, вказує на точність розміщення (помилка не більше декількох градусів) більше 1300 зірок і розповідає про прийнятих в китайській астрономії обрисах 257 зіркових груп і зірочок.
На цій картинці показаний регіон полярної зірки. Чітко помітний "Великий Ковш", а також група зірок, які в наш час називаються "сузір'ям Оріона", а також деякі інші сузір'я - The stars of Ursa Major, Sagittarius, and Capricornus are clearly recognisable
The chart may have been reproduced from an earlier atlas by tracing it on to fine paper. It has no coordinate grid, and shares wording with another traditional astronomical text, Yue Ling, or Monthly Ordinances, which has been dated to around 300 bc. Yet it remains the earliest-surviving detailed map of the entire northern sky, pre-dating others by several centuries.
Older star maps described only part of the sky. Відомі старі карти зездного неба описують тільки частина неба.
The Book of Fixed Stars, an Arabic work written by the Persian astronomer Abd al -Rahman al-Sufi (903-986 ad), displays individual constellations but gives no information on their relative positions .
The oldest-known star chart in Europe is the Vienna manuscript . Dated to 1440 ad, it shows only a limited number of stars in northern constellations , plotted in an azimuthal projection from the ecliptic pole .

Dunhuang Star Atlas
Credit and Copyright: J.-M. Bonnet-Bidaud (CEA, Saclay), F. Praderie (Obs. Paris) S. Whitfield (British Library)
Explanation: This ancient Chinese map of planet Earth's northern sky is part of the Dunhuang Star Atlas , one of the most impressive documents in the history of astronomy . The oldest complete star atlas known, it dates to the years 649 to 684, discovered at the Silk Road town of Dunhuang in 1907. A recent analysis that examines the accuracy and projections used to make it notes the atlas marks positions of over 1,300 stars and outlines 257 Chinese star groups or asterisms. The star positions in the hand drawn atlas were found to be accurate to within a few degrees. In this example showing the north polar region, a very recognizable Big Dipper, part of the modern constellation Ursa Major, lies along the bottom of the chart. An additional 12 charts depict equatorial regions in 30 degree sections and also include a grouping resembling the modern constellation Orion.
The atlas is on display at the British Library in London to celebrate the International Year of Astronomy.



Mizar (ζ UMa / ζ Ursae Majoris) is a star in the constellation Ursa Major and is the second star from the end of the Big Dipper's handle .
Міцар (і Алькор - "Вершник") - друга зірка з кінця ручки Великого Ковша.
http://members.optusnet.com.au/gtosiris/page11-25.html

Chinese astronomy was developed independently and Chinese had its own system to connect the stars. The first Chinese star charts appeared during the Warring States Period (circa 400 BC) or before, when SHI Shen-fu, GAN De and WU Xian created their own star maps for calendrical and astrological needs . Later in the Period of Three Kingdoms, CHEN Zhuo (circa 230-320 AD.) Combined the threee star maps to form a new star catalogue comprising 283 asterisms and 1 464 stars.
Ancient Chinese astronomers divided the celestial circle into 12 sections to follow the orbit of Jupiter, known as the Year Star in China, which loops the Sun about every 12 years. The Jupiter cycle / Цикл Юпітера is also the basis for the 12 months of the year that make up the Chinese calendar . On the Dunhuang chart, the text accompanying each star map names that region of sky, the astrological predictions associated with it and the states of the Chinese empire thought to be influenced by that division.

In his poem which was written to help memorising the asterisms in the sky , WANG Xi-ming of Tang Dynasty divided the sky into 31 regions - the so-called Three Enclosures and Twenty-eight Mansions. The Three Enclosures, which mean three walled regions, are the Purple Forbidden Enclosure, the Supreme Palace Enclosure and the Heavenly Market Enclosure. Seven Mansions form one Symbol. The Four Symbols are the Azure Dragon, the Vermilion Bird, the White Tiger and the Murky Warrior. The Twenty-eight Mansions are the regions near the ecliptic and the lunar path, where the Sun, the Moon and the planets pass by.
У своїй мнемонічною поемі WANG Xi-ming of Tang Dynasty розділив небо на 31 регіон - т.називаемие 3 Enclosures (що означає три обгороджених регіону) і 28 Mansions - будинків або домогосподарств. 7 Будинків утворюють один символ. 4 Символу - Дракон, птиця, тигр і Воїн.
http://www.lcsd.gov.hk/CE/Museum/Space/Research/StarName/e_research_chinengstarzone_b.htm -про цих будинках і Enclosures

коротка історія
Уздовж стародавнього торгової дороги Шовкового Шляху, який з'єднував Китай з Заходом, знаходяться Печери Могао Mogao Caves, вириті в горі Мінгша Mingsha Hill, 25 км на південний схід від Дунхуанга Dunhuang, пустиннного міста в провінції Гансу Gansu province. Ці печери були буддистськими келіями та храмами, де мандрівники зазвичай молилися про успіх свого шляху.
У 1900, завдяки Taoist священнікуWang ​​Yuanlu, який натрапив в Печері 17 на таємну бібліотеку, ці печери стали перлиною археологічних знахідок. Ця бібіліотека містила більш, ніж 40.000 манускрипт, з міріадами тим, від релігії, історії, мистецтва і літератури - до математики, медицини та економіки. Документи були замуровані в печері буддистськими ченцями в 11 столітті.

Там же знаходилася і унікальна зоряна карта. На ній було зображено та частина неба, яку можна було спостерігати з Китаю, вміло накреслена від руки червоним і чорним чорнилом на тонкому паперовому свиті довжиною в 4 метри. У 1907 році археолог Марк Аурел Стейн Marc Aurel Stein забрав карту і понад 7000 манускриптів в Британський музей.

Атлас розділений на 2 частини. На одній є 26 малюнків хмар різних розмірів з поясненням по їх божественної суті. В іншій частині - 12 карт неба, кожна зображує 30 ° division of the sky in the east-west direction / в напрямку схід-захід, плюс карта небесного півкулі. Зірки спостерігалися з 34 ° широти N, можливо з Imperial Observatory in Chang'an (present-day Xi'an) or another site in Luoyang.

The atlas shows 1,339 stars arranged in 257 groups, or asterisms, two of which resemble the constellations of the Big Dipper and Orion. It includes faint stars that are difficult to see with the naked eye, and several in the Southern Hemisphere. The styles of the dots differentiate the three schools of astronomical tradition established during the Warring States period (476-221 bc), each of which adopted alternative names and descriptions for the star groups.

сузір'я Оріона
Orion on Film
Credit & Copyright: Matthew Spinelli
Explanation: Orion, the Hunter, is one of the most easily recognizable constellations in planet Earth's night sky . But Orion's stars and nebulae do not look quite as colorful to the eye as they do in this lovely photograph, taken last month from Vekol Ranch south of Phoenix, Arizona, USA. The celestial scene was recorded in a five minute time exposure using high-speed color print film and a 35mm camera mounted on a small telescope. In the picture, cool red giant Betelgeuse takes on a yellowish tint as the brightest star at the upper left. Otherwise Orion's hot blue stars are numerous, with supergiant Rigel balancing Betelgeuse at the lower right, Bellatrix at the upper right, and Saiph at the lower left. Lined up in Orion's belt (left to right) are Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka all about 1,500 light-years away, born of the constellation's well studied interstellar clouds . And if the middle "star" of Orion's sword looks reddish and fuzzy to you, it should. It's the stellar nursery known as the Great Nebula of Orion.

The Dunhuang Star Chart
The British Library, London
The three stars that make up the familiar 'belt' of Orion are recognizable in this panel from the seventh-century star chart discovered near Dunhuang, China.
сузір'я Оріона
Атлас представлений на експозиції Британської Бібліотеки, Лондон

By the end of Ming Dynasty, XU Guang-qi, when editing the book "Chong Zhen Reign-Period Treatise on Calendrical Science", introduced 23 new asterisms situated near the Celestial South Pole based on the western star catalogue. DAI Jin-xian and LIU Song-ling of Qing Dynasty made further revision and correction to the positions and numbers of stars in the book "Complete Studies of Astronomical Instruments", which now becomes the standard for traditional Chinese star-mapping.

As the scholars are still divided in explaining the meanings of some of the names, only one of the meanings is employed here.
http://idp.bl.uk/pages/archives_web.a4d - архів Британського музею

After several years of research by Professor Jean-Marc Bonnet-Bidaud of the Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique and Professor Françoise Praderie of the Observatoire de Paris , with historical research by IDP, not only have the 1339 stars been shown to have been drawn with a precison of 1.5 ° to 4 ° but the manuscript has also been redated, based mainly on the evidence of the taboo characters in the text, to 649-84 - three centuries earlier than Needham's proposal. Furthermore, it is hypothesized that it was the work of Li Chunfeng 李淳风 (602-70), the Imperial Astronomer and also a gifted mathematician.

Jean-Marc Bonnet-Bidaud of the Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique at the schools workshop (see below) in London, February 2009.

The positions of the brightest stars are surprisingly accurate to within a few degrees, says astronomer Jean-Marc Bonnet-Bidaud of the CEA, the French Atomic Energy Commission, who has studied the atlas together with Whitfield and Françoise Praderie of the Paris Observatory (J .-M. Bonnet-Bidaud, F. Praderie and S. Whitfield J. Astron. Hist. Herit. 12, 39-59; 2009). Stars near the celestial horizon are drawn using a cylindrical projection , in which meridians are mapped to equally spaced vertical lines , and circles of latitude are mapped to horizontal lines . The circumpolar region uses an azimuthal projection, preserving the directions of the stars from a central point . These methods are still used in geographical mapping today.
Yes, despite this, a full understanding of this manuscript continues to elude us. Why was it made, by whom and for what purpose? We see nothing comparable. The manuscript is a puzzle.
The chart may have been used to consult the heavens to predict earthly events. Astronomy was an imperial science in ancient China, and court astronomers and astrologers created star charts from at least the fifth century bc. Chinese emperors sought celestial clues for political and warfare decisions, and the importance of divination led to an early precision in star catalogues.

But why was the chart kept in the Mogao Caves rather than in the imperial archive? "It remains a mystery," says Whitfield. A political and secret document, it may have served a military purpose rather than being a guide for travellers. When the Taoist priest discovered the hidden library, he could hardly have guessed that he was opening the door to a world of such fascinating antiquity.
http://idp.dha.ac.cn/archives/news_current/news_current.a4d#pagetop - інфо, книги