@found-in-space/stellarium-skycultures-western 0.1.0

package/LICENSE.txt

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+This package republishes material from the Stellarium skycultures project.
+
+Western sky culture license summary from the upstream `description.md`:
+
+Text and data: CC BY-SA
+Illustrations: Free Art License
+
+Authors:
+
+Stellarium's team.
+Illustrations by Johan Meuris.
+
+See the packaged `dist/description.md` and the upstream vendor sources in `vendor/stellarium-skycultures/western/` for the original attribution and license text carried with this material.

package/README.md

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+# @found-in-space/stellarium-skycultures-western
+
+Packaged Western constellation artwork derived from Stellarium sky cultures for Found in Space viewers.
+
+## What This Package Contains
+
+- `dist/manifest.json`: generated culture manifest with per-anchor 3D direction vectors embedded
+- `dist/illustrations/*`: packaged artwork assets
+- `dist/description.md`: upstream culture description
+
+The viewer should consume the generated manifest rather than the legacy standalone `constellation_anchors.json` web asset.
+
+Generated `dist/` output is intended to stay out of git. Build it locally or via `prepack` before publishing to npm.
+
+## Build
+
+From the repo root:
+
+```bash
+npm run build:western
+```
+
+## Usage
+
+```js
+import { createWesternManifest } from '@found-in-space/stellarium-skycultures-western';
+
+const manifest = createWesternManifest({
+  baseUrl: 'https://unpkg.com/@found-in-space/stellarium-skycultures-western@0.1.0/dist/',
+});
+```
+
+`createWesternManifest({ baseUrl })` preserves the original relative asset paths and adds resolved `image.url` fields for consumers that want fully-qualified URLs.

package/dist/description.md

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+# Western
+
+## Introduction
+
+The Western sky culture is used internationally by modern astronomers, and is
+the official scheme of The International Astronomical Union. It has historical
+roots in Ancient Greek astronomy, with influences from Islamic astronomy.
+
+## Description
+
+The Western sky culture divides the celestial sphere into 88 areas of various
+sizes called _constellations_, each with precise boundary, issued by the
+International Astronomical Union in 1922. These constellations have become the
+standard way to describe the sky, replacing similar sets in other sky cultures
+exhaustively in daily usage.
+
+The constellations in use today are based mainly on ancient Greek
+constellations depicted by Ptolemy in his book the _Almagest_ during the 2nd
+century CE. In the subsequent centuries, this book has been translated from
+Greek into Arabic (6th to 9th century) and later to medieval Latin. In the
+Arabic more than in the Latin tradition, the Ptolemaic figures were enriched
+and transformed by native Arabic constellations and star names.
+
+In the 18th century, European astronomers suggested new constellations to fill
+the gaps between northern constellations (e.g. the constellation of "the lynx"
+for an area close to the Great Bear but with stars so faint that you would need
+the eyes of a lynx to see them) and also created new constellations in the
+southern part of the sky which had not been visible to Ptolemy. These new
+constellations were usually named after new technical inventions of the early
+modern period (e.g. a chemical machine, a balloon, an air pump) or exotic
+animals (e.g. a chamaeleon, a tucan, a paradise bird). Among them many
+constellations were also named with political consideration to honor certain
+kings or patrons.
+
+In the beginning of the 20th century, the IAU (International Astronomical
+Union) aimed for a large clean-up: in 1922, it officially accepted the list of
+88 constellation names. In 1928 it also defined precise constellation
+boundaries [#1] still in use today.
+
+
+## Extras
+
+In the 2nd century CE, Ptolemy in Alexandria published a multi-volume book
+which summarised the knowledge of the time, rooted in a tradition of
+mathematical astronomy since Hipparchus (at least 265 year earlier). In the
+subsequent centuries, this book has been translated from Greek into Arabic (6th
+to 9th century), from Arabic into Latin, and later, from the original ancient
+Greek into medieval Latin. Due to this transformation, it is now known under
+the artificial name _Almagest_, derived from the Arabic title [#7].
+
+The Almagest's star catalogue (book VII and VIII) has been depicted many times
+in the Islamic as well as in the Christian astronomical traditions. Often, the
+figures were re-drawn in order to adapt them to the taste of art of the epoch.
+In the Arabic more than in the Latin tradition, the Ptolemaic figures were
+enriched and transformed by native Arabic constellations and star names.
+Therefore, this sky culture displays a modern descendant of the Ptolemaic one
+with traces of translations, misunderstandings, transformations, and purposly
+additions.
+
+In 1603 the lawyer and hobby astronomer Johann Bayer from Augsburg, Germany,
+made a new celestial atlas, called Uranometria [#2]. In this atlas, he
+introduced a systematic naming of stars starting with alpha, the brightest,
+beta, the second brightest, gamma, the third ... within a constellation.
+Subsequently, it was established to name a star with a Greek letter and the
+Latin constellation name in casus genitive.
+
+In the 18th century, the century of great atlases (Flamsteed, Fortin, Bode:
+[#3][#4]), new constellations were added to fill the gaps between northern
+constellations. Additionally, there were suggestions to create new
+constellations in the southern part of the sky which had not been visible to
+Ptolemy. European astronomers visited the European colonies and instead of
+asking the native people for their constellations, the Europeans were creative.
+This way, many new technical inventions of the early modern period were
+depicted in constellations (e.g. a chemical machine, a balloon, an air pump) as
+well as exotic animals (e.g. a chamaeleon, a tucan, a paradise bird).
+
+The problem was that sometimes astronomers did not agree with each other and,
+thus, atlases showed deviations from each other.
+
+After many centuries of astronomers taking liberties in interpretation of the
+Ptolemaic original, there were many variants of constellations. As
+constellations are a positioning system, i.e. astronomers describe positions in
+the sky relative to stars and stars relative to constellations (like
+"Betelgeuse", Orion's right shoulder), it is necessary to use constellation
+names and star names uniformly all over the world.
+
+In the "Fin de siècle", there were upcoming suggestions in the IAU to unify the
+system of constellations and star names [#5].
+
+As the IAU in 1928 only defined the boundaries of these areas [#4] and not the
+way of drawing artwork within them, several sub-cultures of painting figures
+and drawing simplified stickfigures were developed during the 20th and 21st
+century. We provide some of them as further sky cultures.
+
+### Constellations
+
+These constellations are based mainly on the Ptolemaic tradition which had been
+used in all three Abrahamitic religions and, thus, was common in the Near East,
+in Europe and its colonies on all continents. However, between the ancient
+Greek constellations there were gaps of areas with only faint stars belonging
+to no constellation.[#8] In the Modern Epoch, several astronomers suggested
+constellation figures for these gaps (e.g. the constellation of "the lynx" for
+an area close to the Great Bear but with stars so faint that you would need the
+eyes of a lynx to see them), among them many political constellations to the
+honor of certain kings or patrons. In the beginning of the 20th century, the
+IAU aimed for a huge clean-up.
+
+In 1922, the IAU officially accepted the list of 88 constellation names and
+their official abbreviations with three letters. The only remaining political
+constellations is Scutum, the shield of a Polish king but without mentioning
+the political reference anymore. The Belgian priest E. Delporte got the task to
+define constellation boundaries according to coordinates. In 1928, he finished
+the work and the IAU accepted his delimitations [#1].
+
+These "constellations" are naked areas in the sky without any stick figures or
+depictions [#5]. The borders simply follow the lines of right ascension and
+declination. These constellations became the standard way to describe the sky,
+replacing similar sets in other sky cultures exhaustively in daily usage.
+
+Stellarium by default displays the precise RA-DEC-boundaries and a set of
+artwork constellations on the basis of Ptolemaic figures but following our
+contemporary taste of art.
+
+### Proper names of stars
+
+Ptolemy's star catalogue had the layout of a table listing the description of
+the star's position in the constellation's figure, the ecliptical coordinates,
+and the magnitude e.g.: "The star at the tip of the tail of Ursa Minor", "Gem 0
+1/6, +66", "Mag 3".
+
+In most cases, the star names evolved by astronomer's systematical
+abbreviations of these descriptions, e.g. first astronomer abbreviated in a
+text "tip of the tail", a next astronomer drew a map with less space and wrote
+only "tail" next to the star and this name remained. With centuries, these
+descriptions were translated into Arabic and Latin, and in some cases the
+translators or writers make mistakes because of misreading or misspelling or
+the Arabic words (e.g. the Arabic "yad al gauza", the hand of the giant woman,
+to the common term "Betelgeuse").
+
+However, there are also a few original Greek words like the red star "Antares",
+the counterpart of Ares (Mars) and even a few original Babylonian terms like
+"Shargaz", the Sting, in Scorpius. Our modern, most recent IAU star names [#6]
+are a huge mixture, also with influences or even politically wanted additions
+of star names from the none-Ptolemaic sky cultures, e.g. the traditional
+Pingsing, a Chinese star name for a star in Hydra (its meaning is only "star",
+a reminescence to his lonely position) or newly adopted star names from
+Polynesian, Hawaiian, or Aboriginal cultures for names of stars with
+exoplanets.
+
+## References
+
+ - [#1]: Delporte, Eugene: Delimitation scientifique des constellations (tables et cartes), Cambridge, 1930
+ - [#2]: facsimile: Uranometria von Johannes Bayer, Kunstschätzeverlag, Gerchsheim, 2010
+ - [#3]: facsimile: Die große Flamsteed Edition - Himmelskartographie nach John Flamsteed von 1776 bis 1805, Albireo Verlag, Köln, 2017
+ - [#4]: Latußeck, Arndt and Hoffmann, Susanne M: "Ein nützliches Unternehmen", Albireo Verlag, Köln, 2017
+ - [#5]: Constellation english names. [IAU Constellations Page](https://www.iau.org/public/themes/constellations/)
+ - [#6]: IAU Working Group Star Names. [WGSN](https://www.iau.org/science/scientific_bodies/working_groups/280/)
+ - [#7]: Grasshoff, Gerd: The History of Ptolemy's Star Catalogue, Springer, New York, 1990
+ - [#8]: Hoffmann, Susanne M.: Hipparchs Himmelsglobus, Springer, Wiesbaden/ New York, 2017
+ - [#9]: Constellation. [Article on Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constellation)
+ - [#10]: Star Catalogue. [Article on Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_catalogue)
+ - [#11]: Constellation image library of the U.S. Naval Observatory and the Space Telescope Science Institute. Johannes Hevelius Engravings. [Link](http://hubblesource.stsci.edu/sources/illustrations/constellations/)
+
+## Authors
+
+Stellarium's team.
+
+Illustrations by Johan Meuris.
+
+## License
+
+Text and data: CC BY-SA
+
+Illustrations: Free Art License