Pretelescopic astronomy

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Pretelescopic astronomy is the science of observing celestial objects with the naked eye.

1 History
- 1.1 Introduction of the telescope
2 Oldest observatories
3 References
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] History

It is believed that the first pretelesopic astronomers were the Chinese due to evidence such as the Gan Shi Xing Jing (the first star catalog which had been produced during the 5th century BC). This primitive form of astronomy had once been a crucial facet to science and technology in China—so crucial, in fact, that if a Chinese astronomer were to inaccurately predict the occurrence of a comet or eclipse, he would subsequently be ordered to a beheading.

Even though the Chinese were among the first to document stellar activity, some of the oldest observatories on Earth still exist today throughout various regions of Korea, Egypt, Great Britain, Cambodia, et cetera.

Although nevertheless, China also bears its fair sum of pretelescopic observatories such as the Beijing Ancient Observatory—a facility built during the 13th century and equipped with a wide array of revolutionary instruments including: an armillary sphere, a quadrant, a theodolite and a sextant.

[edit] Introduction of the telescope

Even though telescopes existed during the age of many pretelescopic observatories, they were not (at the time) used for the fulfillment of astronomical endeavours. It was only until the introduction of Galileo Galilei's "perspicillum" in 1609 (a creation that was later amended by Johannes Kepler in his book Astronomiae Pars Optica) that led them to fulfill such endeavours.