Research and visualizations by Bingjie (Icey) Lin

History of Art and Architecture · Harvard University

A changing moon journeys through twenty-eight lunar mansions. An interpretation of Buddhist texts.

Methods & Sources

From records to moving images

These studies explore how temporal relationships can be examined through images: a moon’s successive encounters, or an unusual event in a historical sky. Each begins with a different kind of evidence.

01

Reading a lunar image in Buddhist texts

The lunar study draws on Yixing’s Commentary on the Mahāvairocana Sūtra and Jueyuan’s Expanded Esoteric Commentary. Passages checked against CBETA connect the moon’s brightness, speed, and encounters with the course of practice. The animation gives these textual relationships a visible duration.

T39, no. 1796, fasc. 4, pp. 618b–c
X23, no. 439, fasc. 5, pp. 575b, 579b

Catalogue data and interpretive choices

Chinese asterism line figures from Stellarium’s Chinese skyculture are matched to star positions in the Hipparcos catalogue. Each figure is scaled separately and arranged for a narrative journey. The Moon’s surface uses the NASA SVS 2019 CGI Moon Kit (LRO/LROC/LOLA; Ernie Wright).

The commentary names twenty-seven mansions; the animation uses the twenty-eight of the Chinese system. A single phase cycle and a circuit through the mansions are synchronized for interpretation, although the synodic and sidereal months differ. The horizon view arranges the mansions schematically; it does not reconstruct a particular historical sky.

Chinese originals, translations, full notes, and attribution

02

Querying an ephemeris for a historical place

The 13 November 1053 eclipse study uses a saved query to NASA JPL Horizons: Sun and Moon (DE441 ephemeris), observer at Yingxian (39.554° N, 113.191° E), 04:00–08:00 UT, at five-minute intervals. Apparent topocentric right ascension, declination, and angular diameter determine the disks’ relative positions and sizes. Animation interpolates between the returned samples.

The display holds the Sun at the centre, with celestial north up and east left. It uses airless coordinates, rather than reproducing weather or naked-eye appearance. UT dates before 1582 use the Julian calendar; the local clock adds 7h 32m 46s for Yingxian’s longitude.

Inspect the query, data, and limits

The raw responses identify the ephemeris and calculation settings. The download preserves the full numerical response, including azimuth, elevation, distance, and the TDB−UT estimate. Ancient Earth-rotation uncertainty affects local circumstances: Horizons gives approximately 1,411 seconds for TDB−UT here, while the NASA eclipse catalogue uses a different ΔT model (approximately 1,285 seconds). These are separate models, not interchangeable predictions to the minute.

JPL Horizons documentation

03

Comparing calculations with historical records

The decade view uses NASA’s Five Millennium eclipse catalogues. Solar eclipse Besselian elements are evaluated for Yingxian; lunar visibility uses approximate altitude calculations. A globally annular eclipse may be only partial at this location. The event selector also identifies eclipses not predicted to be visible at Yingxian.

The Song shi, fascicle 56, supplies accounts of the 1054 guest star and the 1056 comet. The guest star is placed near the modern Crab Nebula’s position in a precessed star field. The comet is a qualitative illustration of the recorded northern sky region; no recovered orbit is claimed.

Dates, visibility, and references

4 July 1054 is the recorded first sighting date; the demonstration’s dawn time is a selected viewing time. The comet scene uses 15 August 1056 as a representative date, not an exact date established by the cited monthly entry. Clear-sky visibility at Yingxian does not establish an observation there, or a causal relationship to the pagoda’s artistic program. Star sizes, halos, and comet form are enhanced or schematic.

NASA solar eclipse catalogue, 1001–1100
NASA lunar eclipse catalogue, 1001–1100
Song shi, fasc. 56, digital text
Full astronomical and historical notes

04

Comparative photographic archives

Harvard College Observatory’s photographic collection and DASCH offer a later record of how the sky was photographed, measured, and circulated. DASCH digitizes plates from approximately 1880–1990. These materials are a planned comparative strand of the research; they are not used to calculate the medieval scenes in this version.

DASCH collection and scope · Plate metadata, images, and light curves

Research and interpretation: Bingjie (Icey) Lin. Source-specific credits and interpretive limits are retained in the full studies.