J. Astrophys. Astr. (2019) 40:45 © Indian Academy of Sciences https://doi.org/10.1007/s12036-019-9612-3 Analysis of Manchuria astronomical almanacs of 1933–1945 G.-E. CHOI1, K.-W. LEE2,∗ , B.-H. MIHN1,3 and Y. S. AHN1 1Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, Daejeon 34055, South Korea. 2Daegu Catholic University, Gyeongsan 38430, South Korea. 3Korea University of Science and Technology, Daejeon 34113, South Korea. ∗Corresponding author. E-mail:
[email protected] MS received 11 May 2019; accepted 2 October 2019 Abstract. We investigate the astronomical almanacs of the Manchukuo state, which lasted for 14 years, from 1932 to 1945. We examine their contents and analyze the accuracy of the time data by using the almanacs for the years from 1933 to 1945. We find that the calendar of the Qing dynasty in China, Shixianshu, provided the name of the almanac. In addition, the reference location of the time data was Xinjing (now known as Changchun) and the standard meridian was changed from 120◦E to 135◦E, starting with the almanac of 1937. We also find that sunrise and sunset times were recorded only on days of the 24 solar terms, for several cities, whereas moonrise and moonset times were recorded daily, but only for Xinjing. Moreover, only days were recorded (i.e., the hours are not recorded) in the almanacs of 1933 and 1934 for the 24 solar terms. To estimate the accuracy, we first extract 19 kinds of time data and classify them into four groups: rising and setting, solar term, phases of the Moon and eclipses.