| Chapter 1: | Comets |
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The original records of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean cometary observations that conform to these selection criteria were then checked in various ways and their dates converted to the Western calendar. Observations of Comet Halley from return –29 through –8, originally translated in chapter 5 of Xu et al. (2000), are reprinted here for convenience.
The range of terminating dates for the records varies. For example, the latest date of a comet in this catalog is in 1784. The Draft History of the Qing Dynasty has no comet reports after 1770. Ho and Ang (1970) continued their listing through the end of the Qing Dynasty in 1911. For this recent period, the existing records from China, Japan, and Korea are fairly routine and unremarkable, and since Western parallels exist, they have not been reproduced here.
1.4. East Asian Cometary Records
Nota bene (NB): For reference, records not meeting our selection criteria are included in italics, along with the number assigned by Ho (1962) and Ho and Ang (1970). Only primary sources are included among the original texts in appendix E. Secondary sources used by Ho and Kanda (1935, 1936) are not included among the Japanese texts, as they are not originals.
BC 1059 [China]
- When King Wu [of Zhou] conquered King Zhou [of Shang], a broom star appeared with its tail pointing toward the Kingdom of Yin.
- [Huainanzi] ch. 15
BC 1034 spring [China]
- 19th year of King Zhao, in spring; a star appeared in Ziwei.
- [Zhushu jinian] xia