From cave art to Hubble: a history of astronomical record keeping

Since ancient times, humans have engaged in a continual quest to make sense of the night sky. Cultures across the world recorded their earliest efforts in artwork made directly on the natural landscapes around them, and from there developed increasingly sophisticated techniques for observing and documenting astronomy. This book brings readers on an astronomical journey through the ages, offering a history of how our species has recorded and interpreted the night sky. From cave art to parchment scribe to modern X-ray mapping of the sky,it chronicles the development of tools that informed and at times entirely toppled our understanding of the natural world. Our recording techniques formed the bedrock for increasingly complex forays into astronomy and celestial mechanics. In addition to these topics,the book explores how nature itself has recorded the skies in its own way, which we can unravel through geological and archaeological studies. This tale of human discovery and ingenuity over the ages will appeal to anybody interested in astronomy and its rich cultural history.