Imagine you are a child living in the 1960s. You are fascinated by the night sky, and by all of the planets, stars and other things which make up far off space. You have a telescope which your parents gave you for your birthday, but one of your absolute treasures is the Starfinder Chart which they gave you as well. Without the chart, you would be able to see all of the wondrous things out there, but you couldn’t tell which was which!
When I showed the children this ‘Starfinder’ chart, they were intrigued by it. They had not seen very many star charts, and they were fascinated to be able to see what stars were present in our Southern Skies. The thing which amazed them most was that the position of the stars changed so much during the year. The children realised that the stars seen in the northern hemisphere are different to the ones we see in the southern hemisphere, but they didn’t realise that the positions of the stars also varied as the earth rotates.
Star charts have an extraordinarily long history, with the oldest known example carved onto a Mammoth ivory tusk. This star chart, which comes from Germany, dates back about 32,500 years, and looks like a representation of the constellation we know as Orion. Other ancient drawings and carvings in caves and grottoes show various star systems, but it is the Nebra Sky Disk which is perhaps the most famous ancient star map. This disk, which comes from Germany, was made in about 1600 BC and is a bronze disk with gold symbols thought to be a sun or full moon, and a number of stars – possibly even the milky way! The disk, one of the oldest known depictions of our cosmos, is so important that it is considered one of the most significant archaeological finds of the 20th century, and is included on the UNESCO Memory Of The World Register. Two of the oldest representations of star charts may have been found in Germany, but it is known that many ancient civilisations studied the night skies, including the Romans, Greeks, Egyptians and Chinese.
Early astronomers of these ancient cultures were interested in how the sun, moon and planets moved amongst the stars, and often they were focussed on using the sky to make predictions. They knew about constellations, and had even named many of them, but they used the sky as a system to understand the universe and life. Study of the stars did not stop though, and during the medieval and early modern periods star charts continued to be created. These often took a more ‘scientific’ view, attempting to accurately map the night sky and as time went by, and more stars and planets were discovered, these were added. These medieval and early modern charts were usually manuscripts or paper documents – the first ‘star charts’ as we think of them today. Fascination for the night sky has never stopped, and throughout history, as technology advanced, charts have been added to and altered, and also produced for the public to use. The chart I showed the children is a 20th century attempt to allow families to identify the stars they could see in the southern skies. Today of course, many simply turn to a mobile device and a cheaply purchased app to do the same thing we have been doing for centuries – star gazing!