A brief history of the development of astronomy, briefly.

The origin of astronomy can be traced back to the embryonic era of human culture. In ancient times, in order to indicate the direction and determine the time and season, people naturally observed the positions of the sun, the moon and the stars in the sky, found out the laws of their changes with time, and compiled calendars on this basis for life and agricultural production activities. From this perspective, astronomy is one of the oldest natural science disciplines. The content of early astronomy is essentially astrometry.

Since Heliocentrism was put forward by Copernicus in the 16th century, the development of astronomy has entered a new stage. Prior to this, natural sciences, including astronomy, were severely bound by religious theology. Copernicus's theory freed astronomy from the shackles of religion, and in the following century and a half, it developed from classical astrometry, which mainly described the position and movement of celestial bodies, to celestial mechanics, which sought the mechanical mechanism that caused this movement. 18 and 19 century, classical celestial mechanics reached its peak. At the same time, due to the wide application of sub-optics, geodesy and photography, astronomy began to develop in the direction of in-depth study of the physical structure and process of celestial bodies, and astrophysics was born. Modern physics and technology developed rapidly in the 20th century, and found a wide range of applications in astronomical observation and research, making astrophysics the mainstream discipline in astronomy, and at the same time promoting the new development of classical astromechanics and astrometry. People's understanding of the universe and various celestial bodies and astronomical phenomena in the universe has reached an unprecedented depth and breadth.

Astronomy is essentially an observational science. All discoveries and research achievements in astronomy are inseparable from astronomical observation tools-telescopes and receiving equipment at the back end of telescopes. Before17th century, although many astronomical observation instruments had been made, such as armillary sphere and simple instruments in China, the observation work could only rely on human eyes. 1608, the Dutch Libosai invented the telescope, and Galileo made the first astronomical telescope in 1609, and soon made many important discoveries. Since then, astronomy has entered a new era of observing and studying astronomical phenomena through telescopes. In the next 400 years, people constantly improved the performance of the telescope and made it bigger and bigger, so as to observe darker celestial bodies and obtain higher resolution. At present, the aperture of the largest optical telescope in the world has reached 10 meter.

1932, Jansky, an American, observed radio waves from celestial bodies with his rotating antenna array, which initiated radio astronomy. The first parabolic reflector radio telescope was born in 1937. After that, with the continuous expansion and improvement of the performance of radio telescope in terms of aperture, receiving wavelength and sensitivity, radio astronomical observation technology has made important contributions to the development of astronomy. At present, the diameter of the largest fully active radio telescope in the world is 100 meter, and the diameter of the largest fixed radio telescope is 300 meters.

In the last 50 years of the 20th century, with the development of detectors and space technology and the deepening of research work, astronomical observation has further expanded from visible light and radio bands to electromagnetic wave bands including infrared, ultraviolet, X-ray and γ-ray, forming multi-band astronomy, which provides a powerful observation means for exploring the physical essence and astronomical phenomena of various celestial bodies, and astronomy has developed to a brand-new stage.

As for the receiving equipment at the back end of the telescope,1In the mid-9th century, photography, spectroscopy and photometry were widely used in astronomical observation, which greatly promoted the exploration of the movement, structure, chemical composition and physical state of celestial bodies. It can be said that astrophysics has gradually developed into the mainstream discipline of astronomy after these technologies have been applied. In the 20th century, polarization observation, interferometry, speckle interferometry, CCD detector and multi-fiber technology played an increasingly important role in astronomical observation. Undoubtedly, the important achievements of astronomical research are closely related to the development and perfection of back-end detection equipment.