Beijing ancient Observatory

[bojan]

Being in Beijing for a while, one of the “must see” locations for me was Beijing Ancient Observatory (http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_Ancient_Observatory). And, since today is a holiday in China (Duanwu Festival), I decided it is a right time to make that important mark on my itinerary.

The weather was typical for Beijing summer – hot, humid, foggy.. so pictures I’ve taken are not that great.
However, it was a great day and great experience.

[traveller]

Looks good Bojan, I remember visiting it as a kid and had no idea what those globe thingys are :lol:
I think they were built or influenced by the Jesuit priests in the 15th century or maybe later I can't remember now. Basically the Chinese made a huge sea voyage in the 13-14th century (and some historians claimed they made it as far as US and Australia), then they concluded the rest of the world was "barbaric" and closed off their contact with other cultures for 200 odd years before early Christian missionaries made their way to the Chinese court.
If you get a chance, the planetarium near the zoo is very good. The zoo is good, but they still show animals in cages, very 1960s.
Bo

[Paul Haese]

We went there 3 years ago for the solar eclipse tour. Part of the tour was a visit to this site. Certainly a lot of interesting things.

[hotspur]

Great place to visit,thanks for posting images.

The Chinese were and are very clever,they took good observations and notes on the super nova in (I think) 1052,of what is now M1.