scholarly journals Stars and Cultural Astronomy

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-133
Author(s):  
Bernadette Brady

Stars are ubiquitous; the Sun and Moon are singletons. The Sun and the Moon visually dominate the sky. They change in the amount of light they produce, either monthly or yearly. They also rhythmically change how they embrace the horizon, creating a measure of time and seasons. In contrast, the stars are many and their light is small. Their place in the sky is fixed and, ignoring precession, their relationship to the horizon is constant, always rising or setting at the same point. They are different in almost every way to the luminaries, in their multiplicity, light, fixed spatial relationship to each other and fixity in a landscape. These distinct characteristics mean that the stars are a catalyst for sky narratives quite different from those of the luminaries. The most easily recognisable stellar sky narratives are the constellation stories. The multiplicity of the stars produces a scattering of lights across the night sky according to a fixed pattern which, to the human mind - with its apophenia, the tendency to see patterns - results in the heavens becoming a vast storyboard of constellations and clusters. These stories are placed on bright stars, dim stars, coloured stars, dark gaps or voids, and milky hazes. Every spot of the dome of the heavens holds some culture's myth, some culture's cosmic narrative, and every visible place in the dome of the heavens has been claimed by most cultures. Their consistency of movement and fixedness in orientation to each other, however, also offer humanity something quite unique: a view of eternity.

JOGED ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dewi Sinta Fajawati

Bulan merupakan sumber inspiratif dalam penggarapan karya tari ini. Secara ilmu pengetahuan, Bulan adalah benda langit yang disebut satelit, satelit satu-satunya yang dimiliki Bumi dan tercipta secara alami. Banyak teori yang mengatakan tentang terbentuknya Bulan, salah satunya adalah teori Big bang atau dentuman besar. Pada dasarnya Bulan hanyalah sebuah Benda besar berbentuk bulat yang tidak bisa bercahaya, cahaya yang kita lihat pada malam hari merupakan refleksi dari cahaya matahari. Akan tetapi keindahannya memang tidak bisa dipungkiri, karena dia paling bercahaya diantara hamparan langit yang gelap. Cahayanya tidak selalu terang, bahkan tidak selalu bulat, terkadang hanya terlihat setengah atau terlihat seperti sabit..            Penata tari memetaforakan objek bulan yang berada di tempat yang sangat tinggi sebagai sebuah cita-cita yang ingin dicapai. Seringkali lagu anak-anak yang menjadi pengalaman auditif penata tari, menjadikan bulan sebagai objek yang ingin digapai, misal lagu ‘Ambilkan Bulan Bu’. Namun intisari yang akan dipakai dalam penggarapan koregrafinya adalah tentang fase bulan yang tercipta. Bersumber dari rangsang awal melihat bulan atau rangsang visual, penata tari menginterpretasikan fase-fase bulan yang terjadi sebagai fase kehidupan yang dijalani untuk menggapai sebuah cita-cita tersebut.            Koreografi diwujudkan dalam bentuk kelompok dengan membagi dua karate penari. Delapan penari merupakan simbolisasi Bulan, dan satu penari sebagai manusia yang bercita-cita. Dengan bentuk tari dramatik, penyajiannya dibagi menjadi 5 adegan, yaitu Introduksi Big bang, Adegan 1 Moon happen, Adegan 2 Mengejar Impian, Adegan 3 Dancing with Moon, dan Ending ‘Catch Your Dream’. The moon is the essential inspirations of this choreograph. Theoretically, the moon is a sky object which is called as satellite. The one and only naturally created satellite belongs to the planet Earth. There are many theories that explain how the moon was created. One of those theories is Big Bang theory or massive crash. Basically, the moon is just a huge circle thing which is unable to shine its glow. The light that we experience in the evening is the reflection of the sun. However, thebeauty of the moonlight is undeniable as it has the significant light within the darkest night sky. Its light is not always the strongest, even it’s not always circle (full), every so often it is seemed only the half part of it or crescent moon.            The choreographer interpreted the moon that belongs in the highest as the goals that she wants to reach. Most of the time, the children songs (lullaby) that pick the moon as the main object that is desired to be reached, for example the song “Ambilkan Bulan, Bu”. The essential idea that is explored in this choreograph is the creational phase of the moon itself. It was started by way of visual reaction when the choreographer observed the moon, she interpret the moon’s phases as the phases in human’s life which are gone through to reaching their goals. Fall and recovery, passionate, and even sometimes they give it in, are interpreted from the moonlight. The full moon which has the brightest and the most perfect light is likened as the strong spirit. The crescent moon with its soft light is interpreted as low spirit and unconfident.             This in-group-choreograph is separated into two characters with 8 female dancers that are the symbolization of the moon and the other one female dancer symbolizes a human with aspire. With dramatic dance form, this choreograph is presented into five parts, including introduction part of Big Bang, Moon Happen in part one, Chasing Dream is part two, Dancing With The Moon in part three, Catch Your Dream in the ending part.


2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (1 and 2) ◽  
pp. 109-117
Author(s):  
Leonid Marsadolov

The necessity of astronomical observations for nomadic peoples of Eurasia was based on the sacral meaning of time. The celestial bodies, the Sun and the Moon were parts of cult of the Sky. During annual migrations, in particular those where there were no reliable landmarks, nomads navigated with the North Star and the main constellations of the night sky. Remains left by these nomads, including rock pictures, barrows and observation posts are the legacy of a complex, organised system reflecting the relations of ancient people with the cosmos.


JOGED ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dewi Sinta Fajawati

Bulan merupakan sumber inspiratif dalam penggarapan karya tari ini. Secara ilmu pengetahuan, Bulan adalah benda langit yang disebut satelit, satelit satu-satunya yang dimiliki Bumi dan tercipta secara alami. Banyak teori yang mengatakan tentang terbentuknya Bulan, salah satunya adalah teori Big bang atau dentuman besar. Pada dasarnya Bulan hanyalah sebuah Benda besar berbentuk bulat yang tidak bisa bercahaya, cahaya yang kita lihat pada malam hari merupakan refleksi dari cahaya matahari. Akan tetapi keindahannya memang tidak bisa dipungkiri, karena dia paling bercahaya diantara hamparan langit yang gelap. Cahayanya tidak selalu terang, bahkan tidak selalu bulat, terkadang hanya terlihat setengah atau terlihat seperti sabit..            Penata tari memetaforakan objek bulan yang berada di tempat yang sangat tinggi sebagai sebuah cita-cita yang ingin dicapai. Seringkali lagu anak-anak yang menjadi pengalaman auditif penata tari, menjadikan bulan sebagai objek yang ingin digapai, misal lagu ‘Ambilkan Bulan Bu’. Namun intisari yang akan dipakai dalam penggarapan koregrafinya adalah tentang fase bulan yang tercipta. Bersumber dari rangsang awal melihat bulan atau rangsang visual, penata tari menginterpretasikan fase-fase bulan yang terjadi sebagai fase kehidupan yang dijalani untuk menggapai sebuah cita-cita tersebut.            Koreografi diwujudkan dalam bentuk kelompok dengan membagi dua karate penari. Delapan penari merupakan simbolisasi Bulan, dan satu penari sebagai manusia yang bercita-cita. Dengan bentuk tari dramatik, penyajiannya dibagi menjadi 5 adegan, yaitu Introduksi Big bang, Adegan 1 Moon happen, Adegan 2 Mengejar Impian, Adegan 3 Dancing with Moon, dan Ending ‘Catch Your Dream’. The moon is the essential inspirations of this choreograph. Theoretically, the moon is a sky object which is called as satellite. The one and only naturally created satellite belongs to the planet Earth. There are many theories that explain how the moon was created. One of those theories is Big Bang theory or massive crash. Basically, the moon is just a huge circle thing which is unable to shine its glow. The light that we experience in the evening is the reflection of the sun. However, thebeauty of the moonlight is undeniable as it has the significant light within the darkest night sky. Its light is not always the strongest, even it’s not always circle (full), every so often it is seemed only the half part of it or crescent moon.            The choreographer interpreted the moon that belongs in the highest as the goals that she wants to reach. Most of the time, the children songs (lullaby) that pick the moon as the main object that is desired to be reached, for example the song “Ambilkan Bulan, Bu”. The essential idea that is explored in this choreograph is the creational phase of the moon itself. It was started by way of visual reaction when the choreographer observed the moon, she interpret the moon’s phases as the phases in human’s life which are gone through to reaching their goals. Fall and recovery, passionate, and even sometimes they give it in, are interpreted from the moonlight. The full moon which has the brightest and the most perfect light is likened as the strong spirit. The crescent moon with its soft light is interpreted as low spirit and unconfident.             This in-group-choreograph is separated into two characters with 8 female dancers that are the symbolization of the moon and the other one female dancer symbolizes a human with aspire. With dramatic dance form, this choreograph is presented into five parts, including introduction part of Big Bang, Moon Happen in part one, Chasing Dream is part two, Dancing With The Moon in part three, Catch Your Dream in the ending part.


Author(s):  
Peter Wothers

We don’t know for sure where the names of the longest-known elements come from, but a connection was made early on between the most ancient metals and bodies visible in the heavens. Figure 1 shows an engraving from a seventeenth-century text with the title ‘The Seven Metals’ (translated from the Latin). It isn’t immediately obvious how the image is meant to depict seven metals until we explore the connections between alchemy and astronomy. However strange such associations seem to us now, we shall see that new elements named in the eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries have had astronomical origins. We can’t properly understand why some of the more recent elements were named as they were without first understanding these earlier historical connections. As we look into the night sky, the distant stars remain in their same relative positions and seem to move gracefully together through the heavens. Of course, we now know that it is the spinning Earth that gives this illusion of movement. The imaginations of our ancestors joined the bright dots to pick out fanciful patterns such as the Dragon, the Dolphin, or the Great Bear—the latter being more often known today (with rather less imagination) as the Big Dipper, the Plough, or even the Big Saucepan. But, while these patterns, the constellations, remained unchanging over time, there were seven objects, or ‘heavenly bodies’, that seemed to move across the skies with a life of their own. They were given the name ‘planet’, which derives from the Greek word for ‘wanderer’ (‘planetes asteres’, ‘πλάνητες ἀστέρες’, meaning ‘wandering stars’). These seven bodies were the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, all of which were documented by the Babylonians over three thousand years ago. Until the sixteenth century, the most commonly held view was that the Earth was at the centre of the Universe and that the seven bodies revolved around the Earth, with the relative orbits shown schematically in Figure 2.


2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 243-256
Author(s):  
Marie Dacke ◽  
Emily Baird ◽  
Basil el Jundi ◽  
Eric J. Warrant ◽  
Marcus Byrne

Distant and predictable features in the environment make ideal compass cues to allow movement along a straight path. Ball-rolling dung beetles use a wide range of different signals in the day or night sky to steer themselves along a fixed bearing. These include the sun, the Milky Way, and the polarization pattern generated by the moon. Almost two decades of research into these remarkable creatures have shown that the dung beetle's compass is flexible and readily adapts to the cues available in its current surroundings. In the morning and afternoon, dung beetles use the sun to orient, but at midday, they prefer to use the wind, and at night or in a forest, they rely primarily on polarized skylight to maintain straight paths. We are just starting to understand the neuronal substrate underlying the dung beetle's compass and the mystery of why these beetles start each journey with a dance.


2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Fisher ◽  
Lionel Sims

Claims first made over half a century ago that certain prehistoric monuments utilised high-precision alignments on the horizon risings and settings of the Sun and the Moon have recently resurfaced. While archaeoastronomy early on retreated from these claims, as a way to preserve the discipline in an academic boundary dispute, it did so without a rigorous examination of Thom’s concept of a “lunar standstill”. Gough’s uncritical resurrection of Thom’s usage of the term provides a long-overdue opportunity for the discipline to correct this slippage. Gough (2013), in keeping with Thom (1971), claims that certain standing stones and short stone rows point to distant horizon features which allow high-precision alignments on the risings and settings of the Sun and the Moon dating from about 1700 BC. To assist archaeoastronomy in breaking out of its interpretive rut and from “going round in circles” (Ruggles 2011), this paper evaluates the validity of this claim. Through computer modelling, the celestial mechanics of horizon alignments are here explored in their landscape context with a view to testing the very possibility of high-precision alignments to the lunar extremes. It is found that, due to the motion of the Moon on the horizon, only low-precision alignments are feasible, which would seem to indicate that the properties of lunar standstills could not have included high-precision markers for prehistoric megalith builders.


1967 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 215
Author(s):  
Earle R. Caley ◽  
Andre Emmerich
Keyword(s):  
The Sun ◽  

2011 ◽  
Vol 366 (1565) ◽  
pp. 697-702 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Dacke ◽  
M. J. Byrne ◽  
E. Baird ◽  
C. H. Scholtz ◽  
E. J. Warrant

Prominent in the sky, but not visible to humans, is a pattern of polarized skylight formed around both the Sun and the Moon. Dung beetles are, at present, the only animal group known to use the much dimmer polarization pattern formed around the Moon as a compass cue for maintaining travel direction. However, the Moon is not visible every night and the intensity of the celestial polarization pattern gradually declines as the Moon wanes. Therefore, for nocturnal orientation on all moonlit nights, the absolute sensitivity of the dung beetle's polarization detector may limit the precision of this behaviour. To test this, we studied the straight-line foraging behaviour of the nocturnal ball-rolling dung beetle Scarabaeus satyrus to establish when the Moon is too dim—and the polarization pattern too weak—to provide a reliable cue for orientation. Our results show that celestial orientation is as accurate during crescent Moon as it is during full Moon. Moreover, this orientation accuracy is equal to that measured for diurnal species that orient under the 100 million times brighter polarization pattern formed around the Sun. This indicates that, in nocturnal species, the sensitivity of the optical polarization compass can be greatly increased without any loss of precision.


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