Old Astronomy

The "dark ages" weren't dark everywhere. In its early centuries, right around the remarkable Y1K era globally, the Islamic empire was at the center of the world's science and culture.

For example, a recent paper has used a newly discovered and detailed reliable historic report of an astronomy report from Yemen, previously known only through secondary sources, by an individual known as al-Yamani, to pin down the date of what we now know to be a Supernova to 2 p.m. on April 17 in the year 1006 CE in the Julian Calendar (the evening of the 15th of Rajab in the year 396h by local reckoning at the time it was observed).

The paper is Wafi Rada and Ralph Neuhaeuser, Supernova SN 1006 in two historic Yemeni reports (pre-print posted August 25, 2015).