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.