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As the historical record of catastrophic impacts on the Earth and their implications become increasingly clear, the work of identifying, cataloging, and predicting the future orbits of such objects has assumed greater urgency. Many such bodies have an orbital history; for example, scientists know that certain important meteor streams like the Leonids began as short-term comets that disintegrated in much the same way as Shoemaker-Levy 9. Here, the historical records of comets and meteor showers from China, Japan, and Korea have the potential to make a contribution to historical research on the evolution of earth-crossing orbits. Since publication of the previous volume in 2000, important statistical analyses of certain records have been published (e.g., Ahn, 2000, 2002, 2003; Yang et al., 2005) but without complete translations. As a result, such research remains the exclusive province of those with expertise in the relevant languages. With this catalog, we, the authors, hope to ameliorate that situation. In addition to astronomers, scholars have communicated with us to tell us how the East Asian astronomical records have materially aided their research in fields as diverse as mythology, medieval iconography, ancient chronology, and Hawaiian oral history. This response encouraged us to redouble our efforts to complete the task of making the records readily accessible to cultural astronomers, as well as for use in historical and comparative research.
Applying the same rigorous selection criteria and style of presentation as in our previous catalog, we have assembled and translated here some 1,500 individual observations of comets and meteor showers from China, Japan, and Korea spanning nearly three millennia. With the publication of this volume, most of the historical records of East Asian astronomical observations are now accessible in English. It is our hope that the observations painstakingly recorded by those ancient astronomers will contribute to the progress of scholarship and be an inspiration to all.