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File:Su Song Star Map 1.JPG

Description

This is a star map for the celestial globe of Su Song (1020-1101), a Chinese scientist and mechanical engineer of the Song Dynasty (960-1279). It was first published in the year 1092, in Su's book known as the Xin Yi Xiang Fa Yao (Wade-Giles: Hsin Yi Hsiang Fa Yao). On this star map there are 14 xiu (lunar mansions) on Mercator's projection. The equator is represented by the horizontal straight line running through the star chart, while the ecliptic curves above it. Note the unequal breadth of the lunar mansions on the map.

Su Song's star maps had the hour circles between the xiu (lunar mansions) forming the astronomical meridians, with stars marked in quasi-orthomorphic cylindrical projection on each side of the equator, and thus was in accordance to their north polar distances. Not until the work of Gerard Mercator in 1569 was a celestial map of this projection created in the Western world (Needham, Volume 4, Part 3, 569).

This picture appears on page 277 of Joseph Needham's book Science and Civilization in China: Volume 3, Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the Earth.
Date 14 August 2007
Source Own work (My book)
Author PericlesofAthens


Public domain This image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.

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Metadata

This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner used to create or digitize it. If the file has been modified from its original state, some details may not fully reflect the modified file.
Camera manufacturer SONY
Camera model DSC-T1
Exposure time 1/8 sec (0.125)
F-number f/3.5
ISO speed rating 100
Date and time of data generation 10:25, 15 August 2007
Lens focal length 6.7 mm
File change date and time 10:25, 15 August 2007
Y and C positioning Co-sited
Exposure Program Normal program
Exif version 2.2
Date and time of digitizing 10:25, 15 August 2007
Image compression mode 8
Exposure bias 0
Maximum land aperture 3.625 APEX (f/3.51)
Metering mode Pattern
Light source Unknown
Flash Flash fired, strobe return light detected, compulsory flash firing
Colour space sRGB
Custom image processing Normal process
Exposure mode Auto exposure
White balance Auto white balance
Scene capture type Standard
Contrast Normal
Saturation Normal
Sharpness Normal

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