Astronomie à l'œil nu
Human vision and geometric alignments were the first astronomical instruments.
Aperçu
Before telescopes, observers relied on careful naked-eye watching of the sky, tracking seasonal star risings, lunar phases and planetary wanderings. Alignments built into monuments and hand-kept records turned this tradition into quantitative positional astronomy over millennia.
Découvertes clés
- Prehistoric solstice and equinox alignments
- Babylonian and Chinese records of eclipses and comets
- Early catalogues of planetary retrograde motion