Due to the needs of agricultural production and ancient astrology, as well as the governors' concern for astronomical phenomena in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, China's astronomy has made great progress at this stage. At that time, many scholars devoted themselves to the study of astronomy and calendar. According to the Book of Jin, Zi Shen of Lu, Bu Yan of Jin, Bi Zao of Zheng, Gan De of Song, Shi Shen of Chu, Zhao and Wei were all heads of astronomical calendar research institutions in various countries at that time, and tried to have their own understanding of astronomical phenomena. Among them, Gan De of Qi State and Shi Shen of Wei State achieved the most.
Shi Shen, wei ren in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, was a great astronomer and scientist in ancient China. He wrote eight volumes of Astronomy, later called Shi's Classics. This book is of high scientific value and is the earliest astronomical work in China and even the world. However, since the Song Dynasty, the original book has been lost. The Shi Xing Jing we see today is a patchwork of extracts from famous historical works of Han Dynasty, Historical Records, Hanshu and astronomical works of Tang Dynasty.
As an astronomical work, Records of the Historian mainly introduces the observation results of five planets during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. For the five major planets, Stone God learned the retrograde of Mars (fluorescence) and Venus (Taibai) through observation, which was clearly recorded in the later Hanshu Tianwen Zhi. In addition, in the quotation of Kaiyuan Zhan Jing, a stone god described the retrograde planet as a "Si"-shaped image record, which was very accurate at that time and even now. At the same time, the stone god also measured the length of the rendezvous period between gold and wood, and the sidereal period of Mars was 1.9 years, 0.02 years more than the standard value. Jupiter is 12 years, which is 0. 14 years longer than the standard value. This is a deepening and quantitative development of the study of the five major planets.
In addition, Shi proposed one of the oldest catalogues in the world-Shi Xing Biao in Shi Xing Jing. The so-called catalog is compiled from the measured coordinates of several stars (often together with other features). It is a very important tool in astronomy. The so-called Shi's catalog is the equatorial coordinate position of 28 distant stars (the symbol stars that are taken as fixed positions every night are called the distant stars this evening) and other stars *** 150. There are two ways to express this equatorial coordinate, one is 28 nights away from the star, which is called distance and depolarization. Distance is the right meridian difference between the main distance star and the lower distance star; Depolarization is the complementary angle of the star's declination. There is also a kind of stars that are beyond 28 nights, called extreme. The so-called host degree is the right meridian difference between this star and its host. Anyway. Its essence is consistent with the equatorial coordinate system widely used in modern astronomy. However, in Europe, the equatorial coordinate system has been widely used since16th century. Because the equatorial coordinates of stars will change slowly, and most of this change is caused by precession. Therefore, according to the law of precession, the age of this ancient equatorial coordinate can be inferred by comparing the changes of ancient and modern coordinates of a star. Therefore, this method can be used to calculate the data of the stone star table, and the results show that some of them were indeed measured in the 4th century BC, while the other part was re-measured in the Eastern Han Dynasty, about the 2nd century AD. Strictly speaking, Shi's Classic is not a complete catalogue. But its existence shows the development of ancient astronomy in China, which strongly proves that the appearance of Shi Xing Biao is not accidental.
In a word, the stone catalogue is the basis of many astrometric work in later generations. For example, to measure the position and motion of the sun, the moon and the planets, we need to use the data with a distance of 28 degrees, which is an important basic data in our astronomical calendar. At the same time, the stone catalogue is also an important basis for the development of astronomical calendar from Warring States to Qin and Han Dynasties.
Historical Records has laid the basic theoretical framework of ancient astronomy in China, promoted the great development of ancient astronomy in China, and is an important milestone in the development of ancient astronomy in China.