ANALYSIS OF AL-BIRUNI'S LUNAR ECLIPSE RECORDS

• Main Author: Puspitasari, Rita
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Subjects: Astronomi
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/79264
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

The development of Islamic civilization science reached its peak in the Abbasid Period and was able to last up to five centuries. One of the sciences that received considerable attention and support from the rulers of that era is astronomy. Astronomy developed rapidly and gave birth to many works, improved instruments, analysis and observation techniques that were better than the previous era, as well as invaluable literature in the form of manuscripts and notes of Muslim astronomers. Al-Biruni is one of the Muslim astronomers in the Abbasid Period in the Era of al-Buwaihi. He is a Muslim thinker who has mastered various sciences, including astronomy, geography, mathematics, geology and others. From the book he wrote, there were records of lunar eclipses that occurred around 1003 - 1019 AD. Records of lunar eclipses were very useful for measuring the geographic longitude of a place and this technique was widely used by Muslim astronomers at that time. The eclipse account of al-Biruni has been translated by F.R. Stephenson and S.S. Said in 1996-1997, but the analysis and computations that were carried out were not conveyed in detail. The analysis was carried out by studying the literature and computation using the Jean Meeus Algorithm which resulted in a difference in the average observation time of about 6,6995 minutes with al-Biruni calculations and 3.2995 minutes with NASA calculations. The date and location of al-Biruni's eclipse observations have been confirmed as correct. Jean Meeus's calculations provide a difference in the average umbra magnitude value of 0.003 and a penumbra magnitude value of 0.021 with NASA calculations, while with al-Biruni's calculations the difference in the average magnitude for the two eclipses is 0.1165 magnitude.