What the Mayans Were interested in?


The Mayans more interested in the:

The sun was associated with Tonatiuh , a red eagle with a large and all-seeing eye. The Mayans managed to calculate the times when the Sun would rise and set. They even determined the length of the solar year to be 365 days. A tropical year is actually 365.2422 days long! How close!


2. The Moon

However, do you know that actually small errors like 0.00059 days off in calculations can cause a calendar to be completely not accurate. A possible effect is that the calendar can be a month off every hundred years. But the Mayans continually update their records and predictions so that their calendar remains accurate throughout the generations.

Hi, all astronomy fans, good to see all of you back, now let us start on the Mayan culture Astronomy......!

Introduction:
Do you know that in the Mayans culture, astronomy was actually done by priests or "ilhuica tlamatilizmatini" ("the wise man who studies heaven"). All the observations were done, only using special buildings as reference points. The Mayans paired certain celestial bodies with a god and thus regard celestial events as an indication of their communication with these gods. Mayans also use to constellations or planets in the sky to indicate the planting season. This ensures that the Mayans will not starve. SMART!

So how did the Mayans exactly make observations in the sky? A common method called the Zenith passage of the Sun is used. Twice a year at noon the sun stands directly overhead in the tropics. The path in which the Sun takes then is called the Zenith passage. Mayans would place a column with exact vertical alignment to the Sun onto the ground or on the roof. When the Sun passes through the Zenith passage above this column, no shadows would be formed. Some Mayans also stay in Vertical Sighting, which are holes in the ground to observe the sky.



After observing, one definitely needs to calculate some figures. On the whole, these calculations were simply done by counting, for instance, the number of lunar revolutions in a certain time period. For more complex calculations, however, mathematics was used.

Hi, all astronomers! To start on the interesting Mayans astronomy, I had created a short introductory video for you to have at least a idea of what the Mayans Astronomy was like. This video was made with iMovie and this was aimed to give a short preview of the Astronomy in the Mayans times and how it worked. We wanted to make the video as informal as possible, giving it a more "movie-trailer" like effect to further enhance the attractiveness of our project. We got all of the pictures from the internet and added many special effects and even some music! Hope you enjoy our video!

Product outcome
Project website ( product outcome)

What a relief! Our project website is finally done! What has seemed like an impossible feat has now become possible. The website now consist of a main page, with our introductory video right in the middle of screen, followed by 4 links at the bottom. Namely :Quiz, Info, Blog, and credits.



So, all astronomy fans, now let us embark on a new journey to the...... Mayans Astronomy! Ya!!!