Chapter 25 Section 5 Astronomy at the former site of "Lingtai"

In the southern outskirts of the "Han Wei Ancient City" site in the east of Luoyang City, there is a huge rammed (hang) earthen platform. This is the former site of the National Astronomical Observatory of the Eastern Han Dynasty - Lingtai. It was built in the first year of Emperor Guangwu of the Han Dynasty (AD 56) ), more than 1900 years ago.The site of Lingtai covers an area of ​​44,000 square meters, with rammed walls from east to west.There is a square high platform inside the wall, the remaining height is more than eight meters, and the length and width of the platform are about 50 meters square.Around the rammed earth platform, there are upper and lower platforms.The original ring corridor around the lower platform, and a ramp in the north can lead to the upper platform.There are five buildings on each side of the upper platform, which were originally government offices where observers sorted out observation records.The top of the central platform of the high platform is "Shangping Wuwu", which is a place for observing astronomical phenomena.

Throughout history, rulers have believed in destiny.They believe that heaven has a will, and heaven handed over the power of the earth to the emperor, and the emperor should manage the country according to the will of heaven.Abnormal celestial phenomena in the sky represent the will of the sky. If the emperor governs the country well, there will be auspicious phenomena in the sky to express his approval;Therefore, the governments of successive dynasties have set up observatories and assigned special personnel to take charge of them to observe and record the astronomical phenomena day and night.According to historical records, there were 43 people working in Lingtai in the Eastern Han Dynasty.

It is the hard work of generations of astronomy staff that has left us with a large number of observation records.Now the whole world recognizes that the astronomical records in Chinese history are the most complete, systematic and abundant.For example, before 140 BC, there were sunspot records. The earliest sunspot with a clear date was the first year of Yongguang in the Western Han Dynasty (43 BC). In the 1600 years from the Han Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty, there were more than 100 sunspot records. .An astronomer in the United States once pointed out: "The diligence of the ancient Chinese in measuring the sky is amazing. The observation of sunspots was about 2,000 years before the Westerners. There are endless historical records, and the legends are quite true, so they can naturally be trusted. "Others, such as aurora, comets (including Halley's Comet), meteor showers, novas and supernovae, solar and lunar eclipses, etc., also have a large number of records.These records provide us with extremely valuable historical data and have important implications for modern astronomy.