Constellations
The divisions of the sky began with the Northern Dipper and the 28 mansions.
In 1977, a lacquer box was excavated from the tomb of Yi, the marquis of Zeng, in Suixian, Hubei Province. Names of the 28 lunar mansions were found on the cover of the box, proving that the use of this classification system was made before 433 BC.
As lunar mansions have such an ancient origin, the meanings of most of their names have become obscure. Even worse, the name of each lunar mansion consists of only one Chinese word, the meaning of which could vary at different times in history. The meanings of the names are still under discussion.
Besides the 28 lunar mansions, most constellations are based on the works of Shi Shen-fu and Gan De, who were astrologists during the period of Warring States (481 BC - 221 BC) in China.
In the late period of the Ming Dynasty, the agricultural scientist and mathematician Xu Guangqi (1562 - 1633 AD) introduced 23 additional constellations near to the Celestial South Pole, which are based on star catalogues from the West (see Matteo Ricci).
Read more about this topic: Chinese Astronomy