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Timeline of astronomical maps, catalogs and surveys
Astrometry is a branch of astronomy that involves precise measurements of the positions and movements of stars and other celestial bodies. It provides the kinematics and physical origin of the Solar System and this galaxy, the Milky Way.
A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, and dark matter bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek galaxias (γαλαξίας), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar System. Galaxies, averaging an estimated 100 million stars, range in size from dwarfs with less than a thousand stars, to the largest galaxies known – supergiants with one hundred trillion stars, each orbiting its galaxy's center of mass. Most of the mass in a typical galaxy is in the form of dark matter, with only a few percent of that mass visible in the form of stars and nebulae. Supermassive black holes are a common feature at the centres of galaxies.
The history of astronomy focuses on the contributions civilizations have made to further their understanding of the universe beyond earth's atmosphere. Astronomy is one of the oldest natural sciences, achieving a high level of success in the second half of the first millennium. Astronomy has origins in the religious, mythological, cosmological, calendrical, and astrological beliefs and practices of prehistory. Early astronomical records date back to the Babylonians around 1000 BCE. There is also astronomical evidence of interest from early Chinese, Central American and North European cultures.
A nebula is a distinct luminescent part of interstellar medium, which can consist of ionized, neutral, or molecular hydrogen and also cosmic dust. Nebulae are often star-forming regions, such as in the Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula. In these regions, the formations of gas, dust, and other materials "clump" together to form denser regions, which attract further matter and eventually become dense enough to form stars. The remaining material is then thought to form planets and other planetary system objects.
A star catalogue is an astronomical catalogue that lists stars. In astronomy, many stars are referred to simply by catalogue numbers. There are a great many different star catalogues which have been produced for different purposes over the years, and this article covers only some of the more frequently quoted ones. Star catalogues were compiled by many different ancient people, including the Babylonians, Greeks, Chinese, Persians, and Arabs. They were sometimes accompanied by a star chart for illustration. Most modern catalogues are available in electronic format and can be freely downloaded from space agencies' data centres. The largest is being compiled from the spacecraft Gaia and thus far has over a billion stars.
The following is a timeline of galaxies, clusters of galaxies, and large-scale structure of the universe.
The Two Micron All-Sky Survey, or 2MASS, was an astronomical survey of the whole sky in infrared light. It took place between 1997 and 2001, in two different locations: at the U.S. Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory on Mount Hopkins, Arizona, and at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, each using a 1.3-meter telescope for the Northern and Southern Hemisphere, respectively. It was conducted in the short-wavelength infrared at three distinct frequency bands near 2 micrometres, from which the photometric survey with its HgCdTe detectors derives its name.
The Zone of Avoidance, or Zone of Galactic Obscuration (ZGO), is the area of the sky that is obscured by the Milky Way.
Omega Centauri is a globular cluster in the constellation of Centaurus that was first identified as a non-stellar object by Edmond Halley in 1677. Located at a distance of 17,090 light-years, it is the largest known globular cluster in the Milky Way at a diameter of roughly 150 light-years. It is estimated to contain approximately 10 million stars, with a total mass of 4 million solar masses, making it the most massive known globular cluster in the Milky Way.
Winnecke 4 is an optical double star consisting of two unrelated stars in a northerly zone of the sky, Ursa Major.
An astronomical survey is a general map or image of a region of the sky that lacks a specific observational target. Alternatively, an astronomical survey may comprise a set of images, spectra, or other observations of objects that share a common type or feature. Surveys are often restricted to one band of the electromagnetic spectrum due to instrumental limitations, although multiwavelength surveys can be made by using multiple detectors, each sensitive to a different bandwidth.
Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Habib ibn Sulayman ibn Samra ibn Jundab al-Fazari was an Arab philosopher, mathematician and astronomer.
This is a timeline of astronomy. It covers ancient, medieval, Renaissance-era, and finally modern astronomy.
Celestial cartography, uranography, astrography or star cartography is the aspect of astronomy and branch of cartography concerned with mapping stars, galaxies, and other astronomical objects on the celestial sphere. Measuring the position and light of charted objects requires a variety of instruments and techniques. These techniques have developed from angle measurements with quadrants and the unaided eye, through sextants combined with lenses for light magnification, up to current methods which include computer-automated space telescopes. Uranographers have historically produced planetary position tables, star tables, and star maps for use by both amateur and professional astronomers. More recently, computerized star maps have been compiled, and automated positioning of telescopes uses databases of stars and of other astronomical objects.
A zij is an Islamic astronomical book that tabulates parameters used for astronomical calculations of the positions of the sun, moon, stars, and planets.
An astronomical catalog or catalogue is a list or tabulation of astronomical objects, typically grouped together because they share a common type, morphology, origin, means of detection, or method of discovery. The oldest and largest are star catalogues. Hundreds have been published, including general ones and special ones for such objects as infrared stars, variable stars, giant stars, multiple star systems, star clusters, and so forth.
The Skalnaté Pleso Atlas of the Heavens is a set of 16 celestial charts covering the entire sky. It is named after the Skalnaté Pleso Observatory in Slovakia where it was produced. The first versions were published by the Czechoslovak Astronomical Society in 1948; later that year, Sky Publishing Corporation acquired the copyright and began publication in the United States. The charts were hand-drawn by Antonín Bečvář.
Zīj as-Sindhind is a work of zij brought in the early 770s AD to the court of Caliph al-Mansur in Baghdad from India. Al-Mansur requested an Arabic translation of this work from the Sanskrit. The 8th-century astronomer and translator Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Fazārī is known to have contributed to this translation. In his book Ṭabaqāt al-ʼUmam "Categories of Nations", Said al-Andalusi informs that others who worked on it include ibn Sa'd and Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi. He adds that its meaning is al-dahr al-dahir.
The Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST) is an astronomical data archive. The archive brings together data from the visible, ultraviolet, and near-infrared wavelength regimes. The NASA funded project is located at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland and is one of the largest astronomical databases in the world.