(Gengwu June 27), August 17, 1990, China built the first astronomical meridian circle.

1990 17, China and the Danish astronomer cooperation in the development of an effective diameter of 240 mm reflective world's largest fully automatic horizontal meridian circle, installed at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shaanxi Observatory.
So far, China has the first astronomical meridian circle.
this shelf afternoon ring through the initial testing has been available visual micrometer observations of stars about 782 light-years from Earth, Polaris and other distant stellar observations show that has good stability, good image quality, This indicates that the Chinese astronomy into the ranks of the world traveling in this area, and formally put into use after the observed the limit distance than the human eye 630 times celestial bodies, observations of more than 100,000 stars times throughout the year, providing more than ten thousand The celestial objects precise location.