The modern constellation
Apus
Apus is a small constellation in the southern sky. It represents a bird-of-paradise, and its name means "without feet" in Greek because the bird-of-paradise was once wrongly believed to lack feet. First depicted on a celestial globe by Petrus ...
is not included in the
Three Enclosures
Traditional Chinese astronomy has a system of dividing the celestial sphere into asterisms or constellations, known as "officials" ( Chinese ''xīng guān'').
The Chinese asterisms are generally smaller than the constellations of Hellenistic ...
and
Twenty-Eight Mansions system of traditional
Chinese uranography because its stars are too far south for observers in China to know about them prior to the introduction of Western star charts. Based on the work of
Xu Guangqi
Xu Guangqi or Hsü Kuang-ch'i (April 24, 1562– November 8, 1633), also known by his baptismal name Paul, was a Chinese agronomist, astronomer, mathematician, politician, and writer during the Ming dynasty. Xu was a colleague and collaborato ...
and the German Jesuit missionary
Johann Adam Schall von Bell
Johann Adam Schall von Bell (1 May 1591 – 15 August 1666) was a German Jesuit, astronomer and instrument-maker. He spent most of his life as a missionary in China (where he is remembered as "Tang Ruowang") and became an adviser to the Shun ...
in the late
Ming Dynasty
The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...
,
this constellation has been classified as one of the 23
Southern Asterisms (近南極星區, ''Jìnnánjíxīngōu'') under the name
Exotic Bird
Exotic may refer to:
Mathematics and physics
* Exotic R4, a differentiable 4-manifold, homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic to the Euclidean space R4
*Exotic sphere, a differentiable ''n''-manifold, homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic to the ordinar ...
(異雀, ''Yìquè'').
The name of the western constellation in modern Chinese is 天燕座 (''tiān yàn zuò''), meaning "the heaven swallow constellation".
Stars
The map of Chinese constellation in constellation Apus area consists of :
See also
*
Chinese astronomy
Astronomy in China has a long history stretching from the Shang dynasty, being refined over a period of more than 3,000 years. The ancient Chinese people have identified stars from 1300 BCE, as Chinese star names later categorized in the t ...
*
Traditional Chinese star names
Chinese star names ( Chinese: , ''xīng míng'') are named according to ancient Chinese astronomy and astrology. The sky is divided into star mansions (, ''xīng xiù'', also translated as "lodges") and asterisms (, ''xīng guān''). The system of ...
*
Chinese constellations
Traditional Chinese astronomy has a system of dividing the celestial sphere into asterisms or constellations, known as "officials" (Chinese ''xīng guān'').
The Chinese asterisms are generally smaller than the constellations of Hellenistic t ...
References
{{reflist
External links
香港太空館https://web.archive.org/web/20120813070951/http://www.lcsd.gov.hk/CE/Museum/Space/Research/c_index.htm 研究資源]
中國星區、星官及星名英譯表台灣自然科學博物館
http://aeea.nmns.edu.tw/ 天文教育資訊網]
中國古天文
Astronomy in China
Apus (constellation)