明末欧洲式天文仪器的试制与使用

1600年前后,利玛窦率先在中国试制小型欧洲式仪器.自1629 年起,在徐光启和李天经的领导下,邓玉函、罗雅谷、汤若望指导历局人员制造了象限仪、纪限仪、天球仪、黄赤全仪、日晷和望远镜等十几种欧洲式的天文仪器,其中多数是小型仪器.它们被用于日食、月食等天象的观测,以及以核验星表数据为目的的观测.

Trial-manufacture and Use of European Astronomical Instruments in the Late Ming Dynasty

Round about 1600, Matthieu Ricci, an Italia n Jesuit missionary, trial-produced such European instruments as celestial glob es, astrolabes and sundials to stimulate Chinese people′　s interests i n Western c ivilization and religion. After 1629, under the leadership of Xu Guangqi and Li Tianjing, Jean Terrenz, Jacques Rho and Adam Schall von Bell instructed their co -workers in manufacturing European-style instruments at the Astronomical Burea u. Before the end of 1644, they had made such astronomical instruments as quadra nts, sextants, zodiacal-equatorial armillary spheres, telescopes, most of which were small-size instruments. Astronomers used them to observe eclipses and oth er astronomical phenomena.