传统的天象记录，以明代为数量最多、文献最多。篇幅浩大的《明实录》中载有大量的天象记录，是仅次于历代天文志的天象记录来源，其他文献例如《明史》、《国榷》、《二申野录》、《续文献通考》、各地地方志等文献以及朝鲜和日本都有各自独立的天象记录。这些天象记录，尚未有全面的整理和研究。本项目计划对相关各文献进行全面搜集、整理，对其中天象记录进行对比，研究其来源和相互关系。使用现代天文计算方法对这些记录逐条进行验证，统计分析其种类、数量、分布，评价其观测精度和错误率。本项目还将作以下扩展研究：分析大量的流星记录，探讨其与流星雨以及周期彗星的关系；不同地点记载流星的分布；不同地点记载的同一次日食、月食、彗星等天象的各自特征；对明代出现的某些以前朝代少见的天象记载进行分析；应用太白昼见等记录对气候和大气状况进行研究；并试图从社会天文学的角度对《明实录》中天象的占语和其他的天文学信息进行解读。

The quantity and literature of the Ming Dynasty are the largest in the traditional astronomical records. The length of the massive the Ming Shi Lu containing a large number of astronomical records is one origin of the astronomical records second only to the History of the Ming Dynasty. Other literature has their own independent astronomical records, such as the History of the Ming Dynasty, the Guo Que, the Er Shen Ye Lu, the Xu Wen-xian Tong-kao, and local chronicles literature, as well as the documents in Korea and Japan. These astronomical records have not been sorted out and studied comprehensively. This project plans to collect and sort out these related literatures, compare these astronomical records, and research the origin and correlation. The modern astronomical computing techniques will be utilized to validate the records one by one, statistical analysis will be used to analyze the category, quantity and distribution, and the observational accuracy and error rate will be evaluated. The following research will be further conducted: a large number of meteor records will be analyzed and the relation between meteor shower, periodic comet and the meteor records will be discussed; the distribution of meteor recorded in different locations will be studied; the features of the same eclipse, comet and other astronomical record of different locations will be analyzed; some rare astronomical phenomena recorded in the previous dynasties will be analyzed; The records of Taibai zhoujian and others are applied to research the climate and atmospheric conditions; and the auguries of the astronomical records and other astronomical information in the Ming Shi Lu are attempted to interpret from the astronomical point of view of society.