用现代天文计算结果来全面研究整理中国古代日食记录,首推朱文鑫先生的《历代日食考》。他开拓的利用现代天文计算方法系统考察中国古代天象记录的研究,成为中国天文学史研究中的显学。介绍了《历代日食考》一书的内容和学术价值,比较了各个研究者对中国各代日食记录的统计,并对错误较多的西汉日食记录做了进一步的考证,以续朱先生言。分析指出,西汉日食记录的错误,许多是由另一条正确记录衍生出的。其错误的形态显示,原始记录只有年月,而日干支和所在宿度,是衍生错误已经发生之后加注的。
Mr. Zhu Wen-xin was the first scholar who studied all the solar-eclipse records in Chinese history with modem astronomical computation, and he published the book An Examination on Historic Records of Solar Eclipse. His work created a new and important field in the study of Chinese history of astronomy. In this paper the content and academic value of the book An Examination on Historic Records of Solar Eclipse is introduced and the statistic results of the records from various investigators are compared, as well as the eclipse records of the Western Han, which contain quite many mistakes, are investigated to continue Mr. Zhu's work. The analysis in this paper shows that many mistaken records of the Western Han were derived from other correct ones. The further analysis shows that the original records only included the items of year and month, whereas the sixgecimal days and solar positions were added after the mistakes took place.