Abstract
On a dark, cloudless night, at a distant location far away from the city lights, the starry sky can be seen in all its splendour (Fig. 1.1). It is easy to understand how these thousands of lights in the sky have affected people throughout the ages.
As long as human beings have existed, they have certainly wondered the sky. In the sky, ancient people saw figures related to religious myths and omens sent by the gods. However, already a couple of millennia ago the real astronomy started to evolve, separating itself from religions and astrological superstitions. People started to study the sky for its own sake.
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Karttunen, H., Kröger, P., Oja, H., Poutanen, M., Donner, K.J. (2017). Introduction. In: Karttunen, H., Kröger, P., Oja, H., Poutanen, M., Donner, K. (eds) Fundamental Astronomy. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-53045-0_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-53045-0_1
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