Edit Instructions

This encyclopaedia was set up and maintained by Susanne M Hoffmann (ed.). Concept, idea, framework by Susanne M Hoffmann based on necessities that emerged from several projects of research and development such as:

• the wish to store and continuously update/ maintain her own research finds in the history of astronomy, e.g.
  • ancient Greek star catalogues (Hipparchus, Aratus, Eratosthenes)
  • ancient Babylonian star & constellation catalogues
  • her research method to connect mathematical astronomical data with cultural data and the absence of a storage system for the latter
  • inspired by the philological project of an astronomical dictionary entitled "Planetarium Babylonicum" by Felix Gössmann (1950).
• Stellarium software development and the increasing amout of sky culture data
• the need of the IAU Working Group on Star Names (WGSN)

Hence, the ASE is the intellectual property of Susanne M Hoffmann (ed.) and all authors.

For any question: please contact Susanne M Hoffmann.

Authors

The content, however, is of course not only generated by one person alone. The content is contributed by selected scholars with whom the editor collaborates, foremost the Working Group on Star Names of the IAU. The author information is always given pagewise (currently: at the bottom). Like in research papers: authors are all people who contributed anything: the student who edited the references, the postdoc who made the maps and images, as well as the professor who wrote or edited the main text.

You have to accept that your contribution is reworked by others, as this is the core idea of an encyclopaedia:

• We want to be up to date: when a new paper appears, its new finds will be included.
• We only include published work to be sure that the original will be available and is reviewed (at least by editors, ideally in a peer-reviewing process).
• However, our researchers sometimes find new things while writing the ASE: so, in some cases, you will read things here in slightly different ways then in publications. Yet, if the newly generated knowledge is a bigger issue, the author would first get it published in a book or paper before including the information here.
• This encyclopaedia is created in the framework of the IAU - so it will be considered authoritative (as our naming of stars is). Although the ASE is a working tool for the IAU WGSN, we are especially cautious: we do not offer preliminary "working tables", not any minutes of internal discussions (only arguments for or against other options of naming like spelling variants, name variants, other stars), but only compiled information. While preparing a star name discussion, a lemma/ page might be incomplete (as a matter of fact).

List of Contributors

Sky Cultures

Overview Page

Each culture has an overview page on which is a list of words in tabular layout:

word in original language (with native characters)	word in (English akademic) Romanisation	transliteration: simplified	translation (English)	Commentary
This column may contain Sanskrit, Arabic or whatever non-Latin letters, or CKJ-signs or anything that exists in Unicode.	This spelling may consist diacritics has a hyperlink to the lemma page.	for many languages, there is version of spelling without diacritics, e.g. Chinese "Běi Dǒu" becomes "Beidou" or Arabic al-Ḫāṭib may become al-Khatib.	we need a simple (one word, ideally) tranlation that gives at least a glance of the meaning. Details are spelled out on the lemma page. For instances, if the term is the name of an ancient deity, it would be sufficient to state here "Deity" and perhaps the realm (if simple enough).	this column is for basic dictionary instructions, e.g. "see other lemma" with the other lemma hyperlinked or "obsolete spelling of ..." with hyperlink to the other term

Side Menu

In the upper left side menu, we create a list of cultures.

The traditional written cultures from Eurasia are called "Planetarium ..." in acknowledgement of Gössmann's work.

However, it does not make sense to translate all Indigenous cultures's names to Latin (which is an extinct language). So, we started to use the Stellarium terminology, e.g. for "Balinese Sky Culture" and other.

In the future, this menu will get too long and will be replaced with a geographical map (we already have test versions of it, but it is still under development). Please ask Susanne M Hoffmann for more information.

Lemma Pages

The lemma pages follow a strict schema, as the ASE is meant to contain information on astronomical data, philology and the history of transfer and transformation of words and images, namely change of vocubulary (etymology) and change of the position/ star/ asterism to which they are applied.

Edit Help (page)

Format of the Page

All pages have a standardized layout.

We are currently designing an input form to help authors not to forget any information. Yet, we are still in the test phase.

For the time being, we work with so-called "Patterns".

File Uploads

Other file uploads (video, PDF of historical documents) can also be done with the same upload menu.

Please make sure that you have the right to share it under a Creative Commons (CC) licence.

Digital Library Pages (References)

In addition to the references that are given on specific lemma pages, we also maintain lists of frequently cited literature. Originally, these pages came into being to make it easier for the authors and editor for copy & pasting the references to the lemma page. However, they also provide a huge advantage when we write papers/ books.

Furthermore, in this digital format, we can provide much more material - e.g. the full historical map or digital 3D-globe from which a detail is presented on a lemma page.

Therefore, we like to also continue the library sub-project, as it provides additional value to researchers: very much like in the age of books when you have lists of references chapterwise and additionally at the end of the book one much longer compilation.