The Provenance of Early Chinese Records of Large Solar Eclipses and the Determination of the Earth’s Rotation

An analysis of the tracks of total and annular solar eclipses crossing China reveals that most of the reports of such eclipses in the treatises in the dynastic histories from 206  bc to ad 1368 were very probably recorded at the capital by the court astronomers. Some of the reports in the annals, on the other hand, could only have been based on observation if they originated from outside the capital, and in some cases from remote regions of China. Particular attention is paid to the eclipse of ad 454, which has importance for delineating the behaviour of the Earth’s rotation parameter ∆T.