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Lately I have been diving deep into ancient astronomy, Babylonian astronomy in particular. I have a PhD in astronomy, but I've found that a lot of astronomers

Lately I have been diving deep into ancient astronomy, Babylonian astronomy in particular. I have a PhD in astronomy, but I've found that a lot of astronomers tend to have a somewhat superficial knowledge of the history of their field. To motivate myself to learn more about it I started podcasting what I learned with the schtick being that I release episodes every full moon to force myself to keep it up.

jk7tarYZAQNpTQa 5y ago
Very interesting. I enjoy both astronomy and history, do you know any books/materials you would recommend to someone who is just an enthusiast? Also, would you share the title of your podcast?
- antognini 5y ago
  I've found a couple of books that have been very good: A History of Astronomy by A. Pannekoek has a reasonably detailed and readable history of ancient astronomy, though as I've been diving into it I've found that parts are a little dated. But it's really good to get a high level overview of what the main problems early astronomers were trying to solve and how they were trying to solve them. Episodes in the Early History of Astronomy by Aaboe is really good, too, though it's more from the perspective of a modern astronomer trying to put the ancient methods into modern mathematical notation. It's very valuable if you're not intimidated by equations. Exploring Ancient Skies by Kelly et al. is by far the most detailed and contains the most up-to-date scholarship on ancient astronomy, but it's pretty hard to read casually. In some parts it's kind of like a review article that's just a bunch of pointers to other references. My podcast is Song of Urania and you can find it here: https://songofurania.com/ https://songofurania.com/ The full moon was today, so naturally I'm procrastinating here on HN rather than editing my latest episode. :)
  - jk7tarYZAQNpTQa 5y ago
    Thanks, glad to see you're on Spotify. I'll definitely check it out!
AndrewOMartin 5y ago
The reason we have a 7 day week, the names of the days, and the reason those names are in their particular order stem from Babylonian astronomy. It's one of my favourite stories.
dorchadas 5y ago
I've got a book you might like then. I recently discovered there was an 'Astronomy Across Cultures' book, as ethnoastronomy is something I've been interested in for a while (It's always neat to see how other people interact and describe the stars and sky. Shame a lot of this info is being lost as languages die and peoples assimilate). The book focuses on non-Western methods of astronomy, and is part of a series titled 'Science Across Cultures'. Full reference is: Astronomy Across Cultures: The History of Non-Western Astronomy ed. Helaine Selin and Sun Xiaochun (ISBN: 978-94-010-5820-9, DOI: 10.1007/978-94-011-4179-6)
- antognini 5y ago
  Thanks, I'll check that out! I'm starting to transition from Babylonian astronomy to Greek astronomy, but my plan after that is to go through the astronomy of non-Western cultures: Indian, Chinese, Mayan, Aboriginal Australian, among others. That looks like a really helpful resource for those cultures.

jk7tarYZAQNpTQa 5y ago

Very interesting. I enjoy both astronomy and history, do you know any books/materials you would recommend to someone who is just an enthusiast? Also, would you share the title of your podcast?

antognini 5y ago
I've found a couple of books that have been very good: A History of Astronomy by A. Pannekoek has a reasonably detailed and readable history of ancient astronomy, though as I've been diving into it I've found that parts are a little dated. But it's really good to get a high level overview of what the main problems early astronomers were trying to solve and how they were trying to solve them. Episodes in the Early History of Astronomy by Aaboe is really good, too, though it's more from the perspective of a modern astronomer trying to put the ancient methods into modern mathematical notation. It's very valuable if you're not intimidated by equations. Exploring Ancient Skies by Kelly et al. is by far the most detailed and contains the most up-to-date scholarship on ancient astronomy, but it's pretty hard to read casually. In some parts it's kind of like a review article that's just a bunch of pointers to other references. My podcast is Song of Urania and you can find it here: https://songofurania.com/ https://songofurania.com/ The full moon was today, so naturally I'm procrastinating here on HN rather than editing my latest episode. :)
- jk7tarYZAQNpTQa 5y ago
  Thanks, glad to see you're on Spotify. I'll definitely check it out!

AndrewOMartin 5y ago

The reason we have a 7 day week, the names of the days, and the reason those names are in their particular order stem from Babylonian astronomy. It's one of my favourite stories.

dorchadas 5y ago

I've got a book you might like then. I recently discovered there was an 'Astronomy Across Cultures' book, as ethnoastronomy is something I've been interested in for a while (It's always neat to see how other people interact and describe the stars and sky. Shame a lot of this info is being lost as languages die and peoples assimilate). The book focuses on non-Western methods of astronomy, and is part of a series titled 'Science Across Cultures'. Full reference is: Astronomy Across Cultures: The History of Non-Western Astronomy ed. Helaine Selin and Sun Xiaochun (ISBN: 978-94-010-5820-9, DOI: 10.1007/978-94-011-4179-6)

antognini 5y ago
Thanks, I'll check that out! I'm starting to transition from Babylonian astronomy to Greek astronomy, but my plan after that is to go through the astronomy of non-Western cultures: Indian, Chinese, Mayan, Aboriginal Australian, among others. That looks like a really helpful resource for those cultures.