Ancient Chinese records of moon/planet-occulting/approaching-star and its application to textual research of traditional star names

MA Li-ping1, Sun Xiao-yu2, Wang Xiao-han3

1. National Time Service Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi′an 710600, China;

2. Jinan High-tech District No. 1 Experimental Middle School, Jinan 250101, China;

3. the Unit 61336 of PLA, Beijing 100094, China

Abstract: The quantity of the records of moon/planet-occulting/approaching-star is the largest in the ancient Chinese records of various astronomical phenomena. The reliability of these records is rather high that the average error rates of them are 10% for the records recorded since the Northern Song dynasty and 20% before the Northern Song dynasty. The distribution of these records in the official history is analyzed. The correspondence between the zodiacal stars names given by Chinese and those given by the West is examined with modern astronomical computation.

Key words: moon; planet; occultation/approach records; textual research of star name