Science 丨 Teach you to use star charts to see the stars (a)

The above picture, is the history of China's very famous stone astronomical map, the original monument in the Suzhou Museum of monuments, currently under renovation, not open to the public, the Su Bo of the piece of the eighties of the last century is a replica of the monument. The original author of this monument, is Mr. Jin Yong pen, "Nine Yin Zhenjing" author Huang Shang.

The Astronomical Chart is of great historical significance, and is the world's oldest surviving all-day lithographic star chart based on actual measurements. It was observed during the Yuanfeng period of the Northern Song Dynasty (1078-1085) and engraved in 1247 of the Southern Song Dynasty. Ancient Chinese astronomy has a very complete system, not weaker than the Western constellation system, but now more sad is that now understand the twelve constellations of the people, but the Chinese traditional system of star officials do know very few, the author is ready to use four articles on this brief introduction.

Locating the North Star

Unlike the Western stargazing system, China takes the equatorial plane as the benchmark for stargazing, so finding the North Star is a very important step. The North Star is also known as the Ziwei Star or the Emperor Star, because as the earth's axis rotates, all the stars revolve around it, much like the ancient Chinese emperors.

The way to find Polaris, which I described in detail in a previous post, is simply to say that it continues 5 times in the direction of Tianxuan to Tianshu, the bright star, which is Gou Chen Yi, or Polaris. Once you find the North Star, you have found the center of the entire chart, and the entire Star Officials system can be found as a reference point.

Xingguan, is a product of the combination of ancient Chinese mythology and astronomy. Ancient Chinese astronomers in order to facilitate the recognition and observation of stars, a number of stars to form a group, each group with a thing on the ground named, this group is known as a star official, referred to as a government. After the Tang and Song dynasties, there are also called a constellation. But this constellation does not contain the meaning of star zoning, and the concept of the constellation is different from what is said today. Chen Zhuo of the Three Kingdoms, Shi, Gan, Wuham three star officials merged to form a 283 star officials, **** 1465 stars of the star official system, for future generations of astronomers used.

Three walls, four elephants, twenty-eight stars

The origin of the four elephants twenty-eight stars and three walls is far before the Zhou and Qin. The three walls, four elephants, twenty-eight star constellation is the ancient Chinese astronomers for the observation of the sun, the moon, the five-star operation and the division of the twenty-eight star area, used to illustrate the sun, the moon, the five-star operation of the position to. Each constellation contains a number of stars. As one of the important parts of traditional Chinese culture, it was once widely used in ancient astronomy, religion, literature and the arts of astrological occupation, astrological fate, feng shui, and selecting auspiciousness. Different fields have given it different connotations, and the related contents are very complicated.

The three walls are Ziwei wall, Taiwei wall, and Tianshi wall.

The Four Elephants (or Four Phases) refer to the Green Dragon, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, and Xuanwu in traditional Chinese culture, representing the four directions of east, west, south, and north, respectively.

The four elephants are located near the ecliptic and the white channel, and circle the sky. Each elephant is divided into seven segments, known as the "host", the total *** for the twenty-eight hosts.