Exploring the History of Southeast Asian Astronomy

Professor Wayne Orchiston has BA (First Class Honours) and PhD degrees from the University of Sydney. Formerly he worked in optical and radio astronomy in Australia and New Zealand. He now works at the National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand and is also an Adjunct Professor of Astronomy in the Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Southern Queensland. Wayne has wide-ranging research interests, and has prepared papers on aspects of Australian, Chinese, English, French, German, Georgian, Indian, Indonesian, Iraqi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malaysian, New Zealand, Philippines, South African, Thai and US astronomy. He is the current President of Commission C3 (History of Astronomy) of the IAC. In the past, he was responsible for founding the Transits of Venus and Historical Radio Astronomy Working Groups. In 1998 Wayne co-founded the Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, and is the current Editor. He also serves as an Editor of Springer’s Series on Historical and Cultural Astronomy. In 2013 the IAU named minor planet 48471 ‘Orchiston’ after him, and more recently he and one of his former American graduate students, Dr Stella Cottam, shared the 2019 Donald E. Osterbrock Book Prize from the American Astronomical Society for their book Eclipses, Transits, and Comets of the Nineteenth Century: How America’s Perception of the Skies Changed.Professor Mayank Vahia completed his PhD in Astrophysics in 1984 from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR). After completing his PhD he continued to work at TIFR until his retirement in 2018 where he rose to the position of Professor. During his research career in TIFR he worked on making and operating space telescopes that were flown on American, Russian and Indian satellites. Mayank has published more than 250 research papers during his career, more than 50 of which are about history of science and astronomy. He has edited three books and written two books. He initiated the Astronomy as well as Junior Science Olympiad programmes in India and guided them for more than a decade. He was also the Director of Nehru Planetarium in Mumbai for a year. He has served on the Governing Council of Deccan College, Pune and Anantacharya Indological Institute, Mumbai and has been on the Board of Studies of Yashwantrao Chauhan Maharashtra Open University. Mayank is a member of Commissions C3 (History of Astronomy) and C4 (World Heritage and Astronomy) of the IAU, and is on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage. After his retirement he started an innovative School of Mathematical Sciences at the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, a Deemed university in Mumbai.

• Part 1: Introductory Studies.- Chapter 1: Exploring the History of Southeast Asian Astronomy: A Checklist of Recent Research and Future Prospects and Possibilities.- Chapter 2: Exploring the History of Philippine Astronomy: Catholics, Comets, Eclipses and Ethnoastronomy.- Part 2: Southeast Asian Studies: Eclipses, Calendars, Time-keeping and Tropical Astronomy.- Chapter 3: A Brief History of Vietnamese Astronomy and Calendars during the Reign of the Royal Dynasties.- Chapter 4: Solar and Lunar Eclipse Records in Vietnam from Ancient Times through to the Nineteenth Century.- Chapter 5: Father Antoine Thomas and the Birth of ‘Modern Astronomy’ in Thailand.- Chapter 6: King Rama IV: Astronomer and ‘The Father of Thai Science’.- Chapter 7: J.A.C. Oudemans and Nineteenth Century Astronomy in the Dutch East Indies.- Chapter 8: The 1875 British Solar Eclipse Expedition to Siam Led by Dr Arthur Schuster.- Chapter 9: Observations of the 6 April 1875 Total Solar Eclipse from the Grand Palacein Bangkok.- Chapter 10: The Total Solar Eclipse of 9 May 1929: British and German Expeditions to Pattani in Southern Siam.- Chapter 11: The Total Solar Eclipse of 9 May 1929: the British Expedition to Alor Star in the Unfederated Malay State of Kedah.- Chapter 12: Time Signals for Mariners in SE Asia: Time Balls, Discs, Bells, Guns and Lights.- Part 3: Southeast Asian Studies: Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy.- Chapter 13: An Archaeoastronomical Investigation of Vaastu Shastra Principles (Vedic Architecture) Implemented in the City Planning of Ancient Chiang Mai.- Chapter 14: Astronomical Aspects of the Prambanan Temple in Central Java, Indonesia.- Chapter 15: Astronomical Knowledge and Practices of the Orang Asli of Malaysia.- Chapter 16: The Linkage Between Asterisms and Local Ecological Systems among the Austronesian Speakers of Southeast Asia.- Chapter 17: Folk Astronomy of the Northern West Coast of Peninsula Malaysia.- Chapter 18: Star Patterns in Mandar Navigation.- Chapter 19: Ethnoastronomy in Madura, Indonesia: Observations of the Night Sky and Eclipses.- Chapter 20: The Pengalantaka Eka Sungsang Ka Paing System and a Diagram for Determining Purnama and Tilem in the Balinese Calendar.- Part 4: Southeast Asia in Regional Context.- Chapter 21: Possible Influences of India on Southeast Asian Astronomy: A Brief Review of the Archaeoastronomical Record.- Chapter 22:   The Influence of India on Southeast Asian Astronomy: Of Calendars and Calculations.- Chapter 23: Investigating the Astronomical Histories of India and Southeast Asia: The Role of Stone Inscriptions.- Chapter 24: The Evolution of Local Southeast Asian Astronomy and the Influence of China, India, the Islamic World and the West.- The Authors.- Index.

“We are treated to a melange of colourfully and profusely illustrated, well-referenced research papers. … There is much of interest in this book and it will go a long way to encourage more people to study the history of their region’s astronomical endeavours and the many ways in which different astronomical systems across the world have interacted.” (David W. Hughes, The Observatory, Vol. 142 (1286), February, 2022)