Atlas of Historical Eclipse Maps - East Asia 1500 BC-AD 1900 (Hardcover)

This 1986 book presents a series of computer-drawn maps and tables for all total and annular eclipses of the Sun calculated to have been observable in East Asia in the 3400 years from 1500 BC to AD 1900. The study of past eclipses is a useful tool in both geophysics and chronology, for example in determining the long-term behaviour of the Earth's rate of rotation. The eclipses of the Sun that occurred in East Asia - notably in China, Korea and Japan - are particularly useful because numerous reliable written records of them are extant. The book will be of interest to professional astronomers whose work can benefit from long-term historical data, especially those interested in studying the Earth's rotation and to historians of Chinese astronomy. It will be an essential reference work for research libraries.