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Antinous (constellation)
Antinous is an obsolete constellation no longer in use by astronomers, having been merged into Aquila, which it bordered to the north. The constellation was created by the emperor Hadrian in 132. Antinous was a beautiful youth loved by Hadrian, and also his erotic lover. Cassius Dio, having access to Hadrian's diary now lost, informs that Antinous died either by drowning or (as he himself believed) as a voluntary human sacrifice, something supported by Lambert (1984). The elevation to divinity meant that Antinous was to be a god in the heavens forever – Hadrian having named an asterism in the sky after him. Tycho Brahe was originally given credit for inventing Antinous, but current finds include a celestial globe by the cartographer Caspar Vopel from 1536 that contains Antinous, so Brahe simply measured up the sky according to contemporary traditions and decided to give Antinous a separate table in his star catalogue.Tycho B., (ed.) "Stellarum Inerrantium Plurimarum et Praecip ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ian Ridpath
Ian William Ridpath (born 1 May 1947, in Ilford, Essex) is an English science writer and broadcaster best known as a popularizer of astronomy and a biographer of constellation history. As a UFO sceptic, he investigated and explained the Rendlesham Forest Incident of December 1980. Life and career Ridpath attended Beal Grammar School in Ilford where he wrote astronomy articles for the school magazine. Before entering publishing he was an assistant in the lunar research group at the University of London Observatory, Mill Hill. He now lives in Brentford, Middlesex. He is editor of the ''Oxford Dictionary of Astronomy'' and Norton's Star Atlas, and author of observing guides such as ''The Monthly Sky Guide'' and the ''Collins Stars and Planets Guide'' (the latter two with charts by Wil Tirion, and both continuously in print for over 30 years). His other books include ''Star Tales'', about the origins and mythology of the constellations, and the children's book ''Exploring Sta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IAU Working Group On Star Names
The International Astronomical Union (IAU) established a Working Group on Star Names (WGSN) in May 2016 to catalog and standardize proper names for stars for the international astronomical community. It operates under Division C – Education, Outreach and Heritage. The IAU states that it is keen to make a distinction between the terms ''name'' and ''designation''. To the IAU, ''name'' refers to the (usually colloquial) term used for a star in everyday conversation, while ''designation'' is solely alphanumerical, and used almost exclusively in official catalogues and for professional astronomy. (The WGSN notes that transliterated Bayer designations (e.g., Tau Ceti) are considered a special historical case and are treated as designations.) Terms of reference The terms of reference for the WGSN for the period 2016–2018 were approved by the IAU Executive Committee at its meeting on 6 May 2016. In summary, these are to: * establish IAU guidelines for the proposal and a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Astronomical Union
The International Astronomical Union (IAU; , UAI) is an international non-governmental organization (INGO) with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreach, education, and development through global cooperation. It was founded on 28 July 1919 in Brussels, Belgium and is based in Paris, France. The IAU is composed of individual members, who include both professional astronomers and junior scientists, and national members, such as professional associations, national societies, or academic institutions. Individual members are organised into divisions, committees, and working groups centered on particular subdisciplines, subjects, or initiatives. the Union had 85 national members and 12,734 individual members, spanning 90 countries and territories. Among the key activities of the IAU is serving as a forum for scientific conferences. It sponsors nine annual symposia and holds a triannual General Assembly that sets policy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prague
Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its Prague metropolitan area, metropolitan area is home to approximately 2.3 million people. Prague is a historical city with Romanesque architecture, Romanesque, Czech Gothic architecture, Gothic, Czech Renaissance architecture, Renaissance and Czech Baroque architecture, Baroque architecture. It was the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia and residence of several Holy Roman Emperors, most notably Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor, Charles IV (r. 1346–1378) and Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolf II (r. 1575–1611). It was an important city to the Habsburg monarchy and Austria-Hungary. The city played major roles in the Bohemian Reformation, Bohemian and the Protestant Reformations, the Thirty Years' War and in 20th-century history a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rudolphine Tables
The ''Rudolphine Tables'' () consist of a star catalogue and planetary tables published by Johannes Kepler in 1627, using observational data collected by Tycho Brahe (1546–1601). The tables are named in memory of Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, in whose employ Brahe and Kepler had begun work on the tables. The main purpose of the Rudolphine tables was to allow the computation of the positions of the then known planets of the Solar System, and they were considerably more precise than earlier such tables. Previous tables Star tables had been produced for many centuries and were used to establish the position of the planets relative to the fixed stars (particularly the twelve constellations used in astrology) on a specific date in order to construct horoscopes. Until the end of the 16th century, the most widely used had been the '' Alphonsine tables'', first produced in the 13th century and regularly updated thereafter. These were based on a Ptolemaic, geocentric model of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johannes Kepler
Johannes Kepler (27 December 1571 – 15 November 1630) was a German astronomer, mathematician, astrologer, Natural philosophy, natural philosopher and writer on music. He is a key figure in the 17th-century Scientific Revolution, best known for his Kepler's laws of planetary motion, laws of planetary motion, and his books ''Astronomia nova'', ''Harmonice Mundi'', and ''Epitome Astronomiae Copernicanae'', influencing among others Isaac Newton, providing one of the foundations for his theory of Newton's law of universal gravitation, universal gravitation. The variety and impact of his work made Kepler one of the founders and fathers of modern astronomy, the scientific method, Natural science, natural and modern science. He has been described as the "father of science fiction" for his novel ''Somnium (novel), Somnium''. Kepler was a mathematics teacher at a seminary school in Graz, where he became an associate of Hans Ulrich von Eggenberg, Prince Hans Ulrich von Eggenberg. Lat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Denmark
Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous administrative division, autonomous territories of the Faroe Islands and Greenland in the north Atlantic Ocean.* * * Metropolitan Denmark, also called "continental Denmark" or "Denmark proper", consists of the northern Jutland peninsula and an archipelago of 406 islands. It is the southernmost of the Scandinavian countries, lying southwest of Sweden, south of Norway, and north of Germany, with which it shares a short border. Denmark proper is situated between the North Sea to the west and the Baltic Sea to the east.The island of Bornholm is offset to the east of the rest of the country, in the Baltic Sea. The Kingdom of Denmark, including the Faroe Islands and Greenland, has roughly List of islands of Denmark, 1,400 islands greater than in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uraniborg
Uraniborg was an astronomical observatory and alchemy laboratory established and operated by the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. It was the first custom-built observatory in modern Europe, and the last to be built without a telescope as its primary instrument. Uraniborg was built on Ven, an island in the Øresund between Zealand and Scania, Sweden, which was part of Denmark at the time. It was expanded with the underground facility Stjerneborg () on an adjacent site. Brahe also innovated and invented many precision instruments which he used to carry out his studies in the observatory. Research was done in the fields of astronomy, alchemy, and meteorology by Tycho and his assistants. Brahe abandoned Uraniborg and Stjerneborg in 1597 after he fell out of favour with the Danish king, Christian IV of Denmark; Brahe left the country, and the institution was destroyed in 1601 after his death. Ven was later lost to Sweden, and the Rundetårn (Round Tower) in Copenhagen was ina ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Star Catalogue
A star catalogue is an astronomical catalogue that lists stars. In astronomy, many stars are referred to simply by catalogue numbers. There are a great many different star catalogues which have been produced for different purposes over the years, and this article covers only some of the more frequently quoted ones. Star catalogues were compiled by many different ancient people, including the Babylonians, Greeks, Chinese, Persians, and Arabs. They were sometimes accompanied by a star chart for illustration. Most modern catalogues are available in electronic format and can be freely downloaded from space agencies' data centres. The largest is being compiled from the spacecraft '' Gaia'' and thus far has over a billion stars. Completeness and accuracy are described by the faintest limiting magnitude V (largest number) and the accuracy of the positions. Historical catalogues Ancient Near East From their existing records, it is known that the ancient Egyptians recorded th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cartography
Cartography (; from , 'papyrus, sheet of paper, map'; and , 'write') is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality (or an imagined reality) can be modeled in ways that communicate spatial information effectively. The fundamental objectives of traditional cartography are to: * Set the map's agenda and select traits of the object to be mapped. This is the concern of map editing. Traits may be physical, such as roads or land masses, or may be abstract, such as toponyms or political boundaries. * Represent the terrain of the mapped object on flat media. This is the concern of map projections. * Eliminate the mapped object's characteristics that are irrelevant to the map's purpose. This is the concern of Cartographic generalization, generalization. * Reduce the complexity of the characteristics that will be mapped. This is also the concern of generalization. * Orchestrate the elements ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Constellation
A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The first constellations were likely defined in prehistory. People used them to relate stories of their beliefs, experiences, creation myth, creation, and mythology. Different cultures and countries invented their own constellations, some of which lasted into the early 20th century before today's constellations were internationally recognized. The recognition of constellations has changed significantly over time. Many changed in size or shape. Some became popular, only to drop into obscurity. Some were limited to a single culture or nation. Naming constellations also helped astronomers and navigators identify stars more easily. Twelve (or thirteen) ancient constellations belong to the zodiac (straddling the ecliptic, which the Sun, Moon, and planets all traver ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
