{"id":37074,"date":"2022-10-20T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-20T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/?post_type=purple_issue&p=37074"},"modified":"2023-03-30T09:03:10","modified_gmt":"2023-03-30T09:03:10","slug":"field-of-view-dear-diary-i-saw-fire-in-the-sky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/2022\/10\/20\/field-of-view-dear-diary-i-saw-fire-in-the-sky\/","title":{"rendered":"Field of view: Dear diary\u2026 I saw fire in the sky"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The amateur astronomer\u2019s forum<\/p>\n\n

Field of view<\/span><\/em><\/h2>\n\n
\n\n

Dear diary\u2026I saw fire in the sky<\/em><\/em><\/em><\/h2>\n\n

Jonathan Powell<\/strong><\/strong> dusts off eye-witness stories of ancient astronomical events<\/p>\n\n

<\/em><\/p>\n\n

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As those who regularly keep a diary will know, the contents can often be of a very personal nature, an outpouring of feelings and opinions that speak from the heart and are for the sole eyes of the author. But some journals are written for a different purpose and with a wider, more public, readership in mind. Whether they\u2019re for private or public perusal, diaries from the past have revealed fascinating insights into events in the sky, including many astronomical \u2018firsts\u2019. <\/p>\n\n

Not all diaries are handwritten. The remarkable astronomical chronicles of Mesopotamia were committed not to paper but stone, in cuneiform, a symbolic form of script. Indeed, possibly the earliest reliable account of the aurora borealis was discovered on one particular Mesopotamian clay tablet. The diary-like text made by official astronomers describes an unusual \u2018red glow\u2019 in the night sky during the 37th year of King Nebuchadnezzar II, the exact date of which relates to the night of 12\/13 March 567 BC. <\/p>\n\n

Closer to home, medieval monasteries were a rich source of astronomical diary entries. The earliest known sunspot record was discovered in the chronicle of John of Worcester, dated 8 December 1128. English monk Gervase of Canterbury witnessed Mars in conjunction with Jupiter on the night of 12 September 1170, \u201c\u2026to such a degree that it appeared as though they had been one and the same star\u201d. We know now that he had caught the last part of a rare transit and that the event was ending just as the planets were rising in the sky. <\/p>\n\n

That was chalked down as one of the first western observational records of a planetary transit. It is also possible, from his description of \u201cfire, hot coals and sparks…spewing out, over a considerable distance\u201d from the lunar surface, that Gervase (along with others) witnessed the Moon being hit by an unknown body on the evening of 18 June 1178. <\/p>\n\n

In the tumultuous 17th century, diarist John Evelyn wrote of the solar eclipse of 1652, where from London almost all the Sun\u2019s disc was obscured. Samuel Pepys started his famous diaries in 1660, just as England returned to having a monarchy with Charles II\u2019s restoration. Pepys had lived through Oliver Cromwell\u2019s rule, witnessed the Great Plague and the Great Fire of London, served as an MP and been locked in the Tower of London for treason. Among all that, he also wrote of astronomy and his passion for telescopes in his diaries. Several entries surround the 1664 comet that he observed that December, and there is a glorious description of a bright meteor, a \u201csudden fire running in the sky\u201d he saw in 1668. <\/p>\n\n

Lawrence of Arabia consulted the astronomical notes in his own diary when he reassured his troops that during a planned night attack there would be a lunar eclipse to baffle and confuse the enemy, which it duly did. Then there\u2019s Virginia Woolf\u2019s vivid and exquisite diary-like account of the total solar eclipse of 1927, which featured in her book, unsurprisingly called The <\/em>Eclipse. <\/em><\/p>\n\n

It appears that our some of our predecessors captured within their musings precious personalised glimpses of astronomical events in a way that perhaps, in our more clinical analysis of the skies today, is sadly missing.<\/p>\n\n

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Jonathan Powell is a freelance writer and broadcaster. A former correspondent at BBC Radio Wales, he is currently astronomy columnist at the South Wales Argus<\/em><\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

Photos: XUETONG WANG\/FOLIO <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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