What were prehistoric people thinking when they first looked up to the sky? It must have been quite the impressive show. Even today, in our so called age of science you can't help but smile when you look up to the stars.
Almost any civilization has had their share of constellation in relation to their cultural folk tales and myths.
The Greeks have Hercules and Perseus protecting their skies from the horrifying Hydra.
While in China, Hydra was seen as a Willow (柳 - Liǔ).
The very first true astronomers were from Mesopotamia, while simple in their intentions, they had an important influence on the sophisticated astronomy.
In ancient India they used sidereal calculation.
"The sidereal astronomy is based upon the stars and the sidereal period is the time that it takes the object to make one full orbit around the Sun, relative to the stars." - wikipedia
All of east Asia's astronomy originated from China. China's astronomy has a long history and is probably, along side with Greek astrology, the most the most influential. Much of early astronomy from China was done with the purpose of timekeeping.
Most of the constellations and stars we know today still retain the name that they were given by the astronomers of ancient Greece. Astronomy was very important to the them and was treated as a branch of mathematics.
The Mesoamerican civilizations, especially the Mayans, used astronomy to created very accurate calenders. Some propose that the Mayans calculated a solar year with somewhat more accuracy than the Gregorian calender that we use today.
to be continued...
Reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_constellation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_astronomy#Early_history
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