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Star chart

May 19, 2023

Several terms redirect here. For other uses, see Star map (disambiguation) and Star chart (disambiguation).

A star chart is a celestial map of the night sky with astronomical objects laid out on a grid system. They are used to identify and locate constellations, stars, nebulae, galaxies, and planets.[1] They have been used for human navigation since time immemorial.[2] Note that a star chart differs from an astronomical catalog, which is a listing or tabulation of astronomical objects for a particular purpose. Tools utilizing a star chart include the astrolabe and planisphere.

A celestial map by the Dutch cartographer Frederik de Wit, 1670

History

Prehistory

A variety of archaeological sites and artifacts found are thought to indicate ancient made star charts.

The oldest known star chart may be a carved ivory Mammoth tusk, drawn by early people from Asia who moved into Europe, that was discovered in Germany in 1979. This artifact is 32,500 years old and has a carving that resembles the constellation Orion, although it could not be confirmed and could also be a pregnancy chart. [3]

German researcher Dr Michael Rappenglueck, of the University of Munich, has suggested that drawing on the wall of the Lascaux caves in France could be a graphical representation of the Pleiades open cluster of stars. This is dated from 33,000 to 10,000 years ago. He also suggested a panel in the same caves depicting a charging bison, a man with a bird's head and the head of a bird on top of a piece of wood, together may depict the Summer Triangle, which at the time was a circumpolar formation.[4] Rappenglueck also discovered a drawing of the Northern Crown constellation in the cave of El Castillo (North of Spain), made in the same period as the Lascaux chart.[5]

Another star chart panel, created more than 21,000 years ago, was found in the La Tête du Lion cave (fr). The bovine in this panel may represent the constellation Taurus, with a pattern representing the Pleiades just above it.[6]

A star chart drawn 5000 years ago by the Indians in Kashmir, which also depict a supernova for the first time in human history.[7] The Nebra sky disk, a 30 cm wide bronze disk dated to 1600 BC, bears gold symbols generally interpreted as a sun or full moon, a lunar crescent, several stars including the Pleiades cluster and possibly the Milky Way.

Antiquity

The oldest accurately dated star chart appeared in ancient Egyptian astronomy in 1534 BC.[8] The earliest known star catalogues were compiled by the ancient Babylonian astronomers of Mesopotamia in the late 2nd millennium BC, during the Kassite Period (ca. 1531–1155 BC).[9] The oldest records of Chinese astronomy date to the Warring States period (476–221 BC), but the earliest preserved Chinese star catalogues of astronomers Shi Shen and Gan De are found in the 2nd-century BC Shiji by the Western Han historian Sima Qian.[10] The oldest Chinese graphical representation of the night sky is a lacquerware box from the 5th-century BC Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng, although this depiction shows the positions of the Chinese constellations by name and does not show individual stars.[11]

The Farnese Atlas is a 2nd-century AD Roman copy of a Hellenistic era Greek statue depicting the Titan Atlas holding the celestial sphere on his shoulder. It is the oldest surviving depiction of the ancient Greek constellations, and includes grid circles that provide coordinate positions. Because of precession, the positions of the constellations slowly change over time. By comparing the positions of the 41 constellations against the grid circles, an accurate determination can be made of the epoch when the original observations were performed. Based upon this information, the constellations were catalogued at 125 ± 55 BC. This evidence indicates that the star catalogue of the 2nd-century BC Greek astronomer Hipparchus was used.[12]

A Roman era example of a graphical representation of the night sky is the Ptolemaic Egyptian Dendera zodiac, dating from 50 BC. This is a bas relief sculpting on a ceiling at the Dendera Temple complex. It is a planisphere depicting the zodiac in graphical representations. However, individual stars are not plotted.[13]

Medieval

The oldest surviving manuscript star chart was the Dunhuang Star Chart, dated to the Tang dynasty (618–907) and discovered in the Mogao Caves of Dunhuang in Gansu, Western China along the Silk Road. This is a scroll 210 cm in length and 24.4 cm wide showing the sky between declinations 40° south to 40° north in twelve panels, plus a thirteenth panel showing the northern circumpolar sky. A total of 1,345 stars are drawn, grouped into 257 asterisms. The date of this chart is uncertain, but is estimated as 705–10 AD.[14][15][16]

 
Star chart of the south polar projection for Chinese astronomer Su Song's (1020–1101) celestial globe.

During the Song dynasty (960–1279), the Chinese astronomer Su Song wrote a book titled Xin Yixiang Fa Yao (New Design for the Armillary Clock) containing five maps of 1,464 stars. This has been dated to 1092. In 1193, the astronomer Huang Shang prepared a planisphere along with explanatory text. It was engraved in stone in 1247, and this chart still exists in the Wen Miao temple in Suzhou.[15]

In Muslim astronomy, the first star chart to be drawn accurately was most likely the illustrations produced by the Persian astronomer Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi in his 964 work titled Book of Fixed Stars. This book was an update of parts VII.5 and VIII.1 of the 2nd century Almagest star catalogue by Ptolemy. The work of al-Sufi contained illustrations of the constellations and portrayed the brighter stars as dots. The original book did not survive, but a copy from about 1009 is preserved at the Oxford University.[14][15]

Perhaps the oldest European star map was a parchment manuscript titled De Composicione Spere Solide. It was most likely produced in Vienna, Austria in 1440 and consisted of a two-part map depicting the constellations of the northern celestial hemisphere and the ecliptic. This may have served as a prototype for the oldest European printed star chart, a 1515 set of woodcut portraits produced by Albrecht Dürer in Nuremberg, Germany.[17]

Early modern

 
Hevelius – Firmamentum Sobiescianum sive Uranographia 1690

During the European Age of Discovery, expeditions to the southern hemisphere began to result in the addition of new constellations. These most likely came from the records of two Dutch sailors, Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman, who in 1595 traveled together to the Dutch East Indies. Their compilations resulted in the 1601 globe of Jodocus Hondius, who added 12 new southern constellations. Several other such maps were produced, including Johann Bayer's Uranometria in 1603.[18] The latter was the first atlas to chart both celestial hemispheres and it introduced the Bayer designations for identifying the brightest stars using the Greek alphabet. The Uranometria contained 48 maps of Ptolemaic constellations, a plate of the southern constellations and two plates showing the entire northern and southern hemispheres in stereographic polar projection.[19]

Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius published his Firmamentum Sobiescianum star atlas posthumously in 1690. It contained 56 large, double page star maps and improved the accuracy in the position of the southern stars. He introduced 11 more constellations, including Scutum, Lacerta, and Canes Venatici.

Modern

In 1824 Sidney Hall produced a set of star charts called Urania's Mirror. They are illustrations based on Alexander Jamieson's A Celestial Atlas, but the addition of holes punched in them allowed them to be held up to a light to see a depiction of the constellation's stars.

See also

References

  1. ^ Kunwar Krishan Rampal, Mapping and Compilation, Concept · 1993, page 96
  2. ^ The Handbook Of The SAS And Elite Forces. How The Professionals Fight And Win. Edited by Jon E. Lewis. p.373-Tactics And Techniques, Personal Skills And Techniques. Robinson Publishing Ltd 1997. ISBN 1-85487-675-9
  3. ^ Whitehouse, David (January 21, 2003). "'Oldest star chart' found". BBC. Retrieved 2009-09-29.
  4. ^ Lucentini, Jack. "Dr. Michael A. Rappenglueck sees maps of the night sky, and images of shamanistic ritual teeming with cosmological meaning". space. Retrieved 2009-09-29.
  5. ^ "BBC News - SCI/TECH - Ice Age star map discovered". news.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 13 April 2018.
  6. ^ Sparavigna, Amelia (October 2008). "The Pleiades: the celestial herd of ancient timekeepers". arXiv:0810.1592v1 [physics.hist-ph].
  7. ^ http://www.tifr.res.in/~archaeo/papers/Prehistoric%20astronomy/Oldest%20Supernova%20record%20in%20Kashmir.pdf[bare URL PDF]
  8. ^ von Spaeth, Ove (2000). "Dating the Oldest Egyptian Star Map". Centaurus. 42 (3): 159–179. Bibcode:2000Cent...42..159V. doi:10.1034/j.1600-0498.2000.420301.x. Retrieved 2007-10-21.
  9. ^ North, John (1995). The Norton History of Astronomy and Cosmology. New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company. pp. 30–31. ISBN 0-393-03656-1.
  10. ^ Sun, X.; Kistemaker, J. (1997). The Chinese Sky During the Han: Constellating Stars and Society. Koninklijke Brill. pp. 21–22. ISBN 90-04-10737-1.
  11. ^ Sun, X.; Kistemaker, J. (1997). The Chinese Sky During the Han: Constellating Stars and Society. Koninklijke Brill. pp. 18–19. ISBN 90-04-10737-1.
  12. ^ Schaefer, Bradley E. (May 2005). "The epoch of the constellations on the Farnese Atlas and their origin in Hipparchus's lost catalogue". Journal for the History of Astronomy. 36/2 (123): 167–196. Bibcode:2005JHA....36..167S. doi:10.1177/002182860503600202. S2CID 15431718.
  13. ^ Evans, James (August 1999). "The Material Culture of Greek Astronomy". Journal for the History of Astronomy. 30 (3): 237–307, 289–290. Bibcode:1999JHA....30..237E. doi:10.1177/002182869903000305. S2CID 120800329.
  14. ^ a b Whitfield, Susan; Sims-Williams, Ursula (2004). The Silk Road: trade, travel, war and faith. Serindia Publications, Inc. pp. 81–86. ISBN 1-932476-13-X.
  15. ^ a b c Bonnet-Bidaud; Jean-Marc; Praderie, Françoise; Whitfield, Susan (March 2009). "The Dunhuang Chinese sky: A comprehensive study of the oldest known star atlas". Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage. 12 (1): 39–59. arXiv:0906.3034. Bibcode:2009JAHH...12...39B. doi:10.3724/SP.J.1440-2807.2009.01.04. S2CID 55911862.
  16. ^ Bonnet-Bidaud, Jean-Marc (2009-06-27). "The Oldest Extand Star Chart". Institut de recherche sur les lois fondamentales de l'Univers. Retrieved 2009-09-30.
  17. ^ Harley, John Brian; Woodward, David (1987). The History of cartography. Vol. 2 (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press US. pp. 60–61. ISBN 0-226-31635-1.
  18. ^ Hearnshaw, J. B. (1996). The measurement of starlight: two centuries of astronomical photometry. Cambridge University Press. pp. 9–10. ISBN 0-521-40393-6.
  19. ^ Swerdlow, N. M. (August 1986). "A Star Catalogue Used by Johannes Bayer". Journal for the History of Astronomy. 17 (50): 189–197. Bibcode:1986JHA....17..189S. doi:10.1177/002182868601700304. S2CID 118829690.

External links

  • An online guide to using a star chart
  • The world's earliest manuscript Star Chart from Dunhuang on the Silk Road

Star charts

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to star charts.
  • Online Planetarium - The Sky – Free interactive star chart based on location
  • Sky Chart – Free Northern Sky Chart Cutout.
  • Planispherium – Free Northern Sky Chart Cutout in Latin
  • SFA Star Charts – Free star charts
  • Geody Star Charts – Free (CC-by-sa) printer friendly star charts for several latitudes and times of the year
  • An online star chart
  • Monthly sky maps for every location on Earth 2007-09-13 at the Wayback Machine
  • The Evening Sky Map – Free monthly star charts and calendar for northern hemisphere, southern hemisphere, and equatorial sky watchers.
  • Sky Map Online – Free interactive star chart (showing over 1.2 million stars up to magnitude 12)
  • Stellarmap.com – Online map of the stars (requires compatible browser such as Chrome, Opera, Firefox, Safari or IE9).

May 19, 2023
star, chart, several, terms, redirect, here, other, uses, star, disambiguation, disambiguation, star, chart, celestial, night, with, astronomical, objects, laid, grid, system, they, used, identify, locate, constellations, stars, nebulae, galaxies, planets, the. Several terms redirect here For other uses see Star map disambiguation and Star chart disambiguation A star chart is a celestial map of the night sky with astronomical objects laid out on a grid system They are used to identify and locate constellations stars nebulae galaxies and planets 1 They have been used for human navigation since time immemorial 2 Note that a star chart differs from an astronomical catalog which is a listing or tabulation of astronomical objects for a particular purpose Tools utilizing a star chart include the astrolabe and planisphere A celestial map by the Dutch cartographer Frederik de Wit 1670 Contents 1 History 1 1 Prehistory 1 2 Antiquity 1 3 Medieval 1 4 Early modern 1 5 Modern 2 See also 3 References 4 External links 4 1 Star chartsHistory Edit Farnese Atlas at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale Naples Prehistory Edit A variety of archaeological sites and artifacts found are thought to indicate ancient made star charts The oldest known star chart may be a carved ivory Mammoth tusk drawn by early people from Asia who moved into Europe that was discovered in Germany in 1979 This artifact is 32 500 years old and has a carving that resembles the constellation Orion although it could not be confirmed and could also be a pregnancy chart 3 German researcher Dr Michael Rappenglueck of the University of Munich has suggested that drawing on the wall of the Lascaux caves in France could be a graphical representation of the Pleiades open cluster of stars This is dated from 33 000 to 10 000 years ago He also suggested a panel in the same caves depicting a charging bison a man with a bird s head and the head of a bird on top of a piece of wood together may depict the Summer Triangle which at the time was a circumpolar formation 4 Rappenglueck also discovered a drawing of the Northern Crown constellation in the cave of El Castillo North of Spain made in the same period as the Lascaux chart 5 Another star chart panel created more than 21 000 years ago was found in the La Tete du Lion cave fr The bovine in this panel may represent the constellation Taurus with a pattern representing the Pleiades just above it 6 A star chart drawn 5000 years ago by the Indians in Kashmir which also depict a supernova for the first time in human history 7 The Nebra sky disk a 30 cm wide bronze disk dated to 1600 BC bears gold symbols generally interpreted as a sun or full moon a lunar crescent several stars including the Pleiades cluster and possibly the Milky Way Antiquity Edit The oldest accurately dated star chart appeared in ancient Egyptian astronomy in 1534 BC 8 The earliest known star catalogues were compiled by the ancient Babylonian astronomers of Mesopotamia in the late 2nd millennium BC during the Kassite Period ca 1531 1155 BC 9 The oldest records of Chinese astronomy date to the Warring States period 476 221 BC but the earliest preserved Chinese star catalogues of astronomers Shi Shen and Gan De are found in the 2nd century BC Shiji by the Western Han historian Sima Qian 10 The oldest Chinese graphical representation of the night sky is a lacquerware box from the 5th century BC Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng although this depiction shows the positions of the Chinese constellations by name and does not show individual stars 11 The Farnese Atlas is a 2nd century AD Roman copy of a Hellenistic era Greek statue depicting the Titan Atlas holding the celestial sphere on his shoulder It is the oldest surviving depiction of the ancient Greek constellations and includes grid circles that provide coordinate positions Because of precession the positions of the constellations slowly change over time By comparing the positions of the 41 constellations against the grid circles an accurate determination can be made of the epoch when the original observations were performed Based upon this information the constellations were catalogued at 125 55 BC This evidence indicates that the star catalogue of the 2nd century BC Greek astronomer Hipparchus was used 12 A Roman era example of a graphical representation of the night sky is the Ptolemaic Egyptian Dendera zodiac dating from 50 BC This is a bas relief sculpting on a ceiling at the Dendera Temple complex It is a planisphere depicting the zodiac in graphical representations However individual stars are not plotted 13 Medieval Edit The oldest surviving manuscript star chart was the Dunhuang Star Chart dated to the Tang dynasty 618 907 and discovered in the Mogao Caves of Dunhuang in Gansu Western China along the Silk Road This is a scroll 210 cm in length and 24 4 cm wide showing the sky between declinations 40 south to 40 north in twelve panels plus a thirteenth panel showing the northern circumpolar sky A total of 1 345 stars are drawn grouped into 257 asterisms The date of this chart is uncertain but is estimated as 705 10 AD 14 15 16 Star chart of the south polar projection for Chinese astronomer Su Song s 1020 1101 celestial globe During the Song dynasty 960 1279 the Chinese astronomer Su Song wrote a book titled Xin Yixiang Fa Yao New Design for the Armillary Clock containing five maps of 1 464 stars This has been dated to 1092 In 1193 the astronomer Huang Shang prepared a planisphere along with explanatory text It was engraved in stone in 1247 and this chart still exists in the Wen Miao temple in Suzhou 15 In Muslim astronomy the first star chart to be drawn accurately was most likely the illustrations produced by the Persian astronomer Abd al Rahman al Sufi in his 964 work titled Book of Fixed Stars This book was an update of parts VII 5 and VIII 1 of the 2nd century Almagest star catalogue by Ptolemy The work of al Sufi contained illustrations of the constellations and portrayed the brighter stars as dots The original book did not survive but a copy from about 1009 is preserved at the Oxford University 14 15 Perhaps the oldest European star map was a parchment manuscript titled De Composicione Spere Solide It was most likely produced in Vienna Austria in 1440 and consisted of a two part map depicting the constellations of the northern celestial hemisphere and the ecliptic This may have served as a prototype for the oldest European printed star chart a 1515 set of woodcut portraits produced by Albrecht Durer in Nuremberg Germany 17 Early modern Edit Hevelius Firmamentum Sobiescianum sive Uranographia 1690 During the European Age of Discovery expeditions to the southern hemisphere began to result in the addition of new constellations These most likely came from the records of two Dutch sailors Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman who in 1595 traveled together to the Dutch East Indies Their compilations resulted in the 1601 globe of Jodocus Hondius who added 12 new southern constellations Several other such maps were produced including Johann Bayer s Uranometria in 1603 18 The latter was the first atlas to chart both celestial hemispheres and it introduced the Bayer designations for identifying the brightest stars using the Greek alphabet The Uranometria contained 48 maps of Ptolemaic constellations a plate of the southern constellations and two plates showing the entire northern and southern hemispheres in stereographic polar projection 19 Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius published his Firmamentum Sobiescianum star atlas posthumously in 1690 It contained 56 large double page star maps and improved the accuracy in the position of the southern stars He introduced 11 more constellations including Scutum Lacerta and Canes Venatici Modern Edit In 1824 Sidney Hall produced a set of star charts called Urania s Mirror They are illustrations based on Alexander Jamieson s A Celestial Atlas but the addition of holes punched in them allowed them to be held up to a light to see a depiction of the constellation s stars See also Edit88 modern constellations by area Astrology Cheonsang Yeolchabunyajido Ephemeris Lists of stars by constellation Magnitude astronomy Star cartography Timeline of astronomical maps catalogs and surveysReferences Edit Kunwar Krishan Rampal Mapping and Compilation Concept 1993 page 96 The Handbook Of The SAS And Elite Forces How The Professionals Fight And Win Edited by Jon E Lewis p 373 Tactics And Techniques Personal Skills And Techniques Robinson Publishing Ltd 1997 ISBN 1 85487 675 9 Whitehouse David January 21 2003 Oldest star chart found BBC Retrieved 2009 09 29 Lucentini Jack Dr Michael A Rappenglueck sees maps of the night sky and images of shamanistic ritual teeming with cosmological meaning space Retrieved 2009 09 29 BBC News SCI TECH Ice Age star map discovered news bbc co uk Retrieved 13 April 2018 Sparavigna Amelia October 2008 The Pleiades the celestial herd of ancient timekeepers arXiv 0810 1592v1 physics hist ph http www tifr res in archaeo papers Prehistoric 20astronomy Oldest 20Supernova 20record 20in 20Kashmir pdf bare URL PDF von Spaeth Ove 2000 Dating the Oldest Egyptian Star Map Centaurus 42 3 159 179 Bibcode 2000Cent 42 159V doi 10 1034 j 1600 0498 2000 420301 x Retrieved 2007 10 21 North John 1995 The Norton History of Astronomy and Cosmology New York and London W W Norton amp Company pp 30 31 ISBN 0 393 03656 1 Sun X Kistemaker J 1997 The Chinese Sky During the Han Constellating Stars and Society Koninklijke Brill pp 21 22 ISBN 90 04 10737 1 Sun X Kistemaker J 1997 The Chinese Sky During the Han Constellating Stars and Society Koninklijke Brill pp 18 19 ISBN 90 04 10737 1 Schaefer Bradley E May 2005 The epoch of the constellations on the Farnese Atlas and their origin in Hipparchus s lost catalogue Journal for the History of Astronomy 36 2 123 167 196 Bibcode 2005JHA 36 167S doi 10 1177 002182860503600202 S2CID 15431718 Evans James August 1999 The Material Culture of Greek Astronomy Journal for the History of Astronomy 30 3 237 307 289 290 Bibcode 1999JHA 30 237E doi 10 1177 002182869903000305 S2CID 120800329 a b Whitfield Susan Sims Williams Ursula 2004 The Silk Road trade travel war and faith Serindia Publications Inc pp 81 86 ISBN 1 932476 13 X a b c Bonnet Bidaud Jean Marc Praderie Francoise Whitfield Susan March 2009 The Dunhuang Chinese sky A comprehensive study of the oldest known star atlas Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage 12 1 39 59 arXiv 0906 3034 Bibcode 2009JAHH 12 39B doi 10 3724 SP J 1440 2807 2009 01 04 S2CID 55911862 Bonnet Bidaud Jean Marc 2009 06 27 The Oldest Extand Star Chart Institut de recherche sur les lois fondamentales de l Univers Retrieved 2009 09 30 Harley John Brian Woodward David 1987 The History of cartography Vol 2 2nd ed Oxford University Press US pp 60 61 ISBN 0 226 31635 1 Hearnshaw J B 1996 The measurement of starlight two centuries of astronomical photometry Cambridge University Press pp 9 10 ISBN 0 521 40393 6 Swerdlow N M August 1986 A Star Catalogue Used by Johannes Bayer Journal for the History of Astronomy 17 50 189 197 Bibcode 1986JHA 17 189S doi 10 1177 002182868601700304 S2CID 118829690 External links EditAn online guide to using a star chart The world s earliest manuscript Star Chart from Dunhuang on the Silk RoadStar charts Edit Wikimedia Commons has media related to star charts Online Planetarium The Sky Free interactive star chart based on location Sky Chart Free Northern Sky Chart Cutout Planispherium Free Northern Sky Chart Cutout in Latin SFA Star Charts Free star charts Geody Star Charts Free CC by sa printer friendly star charts for several latitudes and times of the year An online star chart Monthly sky maps for every location on Earth Archived 2007 09 13 at the Wayback Machine The Evening Sky Map Free monthly star charts and calendar for northern hemisphere southern hemisphere and equatorial sky watchers Sky Map Online Free interactive star chart showing over 1 2 million stars up to magnitude 12 Stellarmap com Online map of the stars requires compatible browser such as Chrome Opera Firefox Safari or IE9 Portals Astronomy Stars Spaceflight Outer space Solar System Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Star chart amp oldid 1150745212, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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