"The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible."
(Albert Einstein)
Astronomy was very important to the ancients, they relied on it for time calculations, navigation, religion, etc.
They looked in awe towards the nightly sky and wondered what all those beautiful lights were, during the day they worshipped the sun for the warmth and fertility it offered and at night they praised the moon for its (relection of) light and its influence on the Eart and its living creatures, this influence is often underestimated but without the moon there would be no high and low tide and no gravitational stabilization for the Earth's rotation, the moon also influences the human mind (more suicides, killings, and accidents during full moon) and the fertility of all living beings.
Nowadays we consider worshipping natural phenomenons rediculous but the ancient peoples didn't have the scientifical knowledge we posess today; everything they didn't understand was seen as an intervention of the gods.
Think about it; when you see a big ball of flame shooting through the sky, wouldn't you be impressed? nowadays we can identify it as a comet that passes the Earth at close range, but ancient peoples had no idea what they were dealing with and could only explain this as a god in a chariot riding through the air.
We can laugh about this but aren't we still doing the same thing nowadays? many people in our modern society read their daily horoscope, visit fortune tellers, or use lucky items.
Our modern world is cold and clinical without belief, dreams, or intuition while the world of our ancestors was full of wonders, legends, and dreams; in some ways they were richer than we are today.
There were many different explanations for the origins of the celestial bodies that our ancestors saw in the sky, the most common belief amongst our animistic ancestors was presumably that bodies like the sun and moon were inhabited by a god(dess) or powerful spirit and could thus be worshipped and influenced into being beneficial for humanity.
In Germanic folklore the sun was seen as male and the moon as female, perhaps because the cycle of the moon coinsides with the female menstrutation cycle.
Ancient astronomical monuments make us believe that the worship of the moon predates the worship of the sun, which became more popular during the Bronze Age.
Eventually people started making up stories about how the sun and moon managed to move across the sky, the most widespread of these stories is the belief in a sunship that floats the sun along the horizon, some examples of this sunship can be found on a sundisk found in Germany as well as on Scandinavian rock carvings, in later folklore the sunship was in some cases replaced by a sunwagon.
Apart from the sunship theory there were also some other explanations, for instance the Edda mentions that both the sun and moon are moving through the air in chariots.
The Eddan creation myth tells us that the universe was created by Odin and his two brothers Vili and Vé, who killed Ymir the Frost Giant and created the universe from his body.
His skull became the sky and his eyes the sun and the moon, sparks from the battle became the stars.
Like today, there were believers and sceptics; not everybody took this explanation literally, and some people began studying the stars to find out what they were.
They found out that those lights slowly changed their position (because of the Earth's rotation and orbit around the sun) and tried to calculate the time it took before they returned to their old position again.
They created calendars based on that information that came very close to our modern ones, and the same goes for the Germanic lunar calendar.
Little is known about Germanic astronomy, but researchers agree that there is enough proof to say that it has been practiced by them, though the cold northern climate with its heavy clouds and pouring rains must have made it difficult to make exact calculations because the sky was not always clear enough for a good observation.
In later times the Germans in Scandinavia practiced astronomy too and they kept records of it, they also used sundials.
The names that were used for the star constellations differed in each area; Orion's Belt for instance was called "Woenswagen" (Wodan's wagon) in the Netherlands, "Fiskekrok" (Fish hook) in Norway, and "Sense" (Scythe) in Germany.
Externsteine:
The Externstones are located in the German province Nordrhein-Westfalen, they are believed to have been a Germanic sanctuary where Summer Solstice celebrations were held, though researchers still haven't fully agreed about who built it and what it's purpose was.
The stones remain controversial today and only few researchers or archeologists dare to study them, this was mainly caused by the nazi's who excavated the site in 1934 and came up with the wildest speculations about the stones, which still causes people to avoid the subject because they are afraid not to be taken serious.
In 772AD Charlemagne attacked the heathen Saxons and destroyed the Irminsul (a holy pillar), he also tried to destroy the Externsteine but when this failed he decided to dedicate the stones to the Christian God, he then ordered his artists to apply Christian motives and carvings to the rocks.
There are stairs in the rocks that lead to caves and rooms that are orientated towards certain positions in the sky, possibly to observe the Solstices and other astronomical happenings.
The exact origins of the Externsteine are unknown, some believe they are Celtic, others believe they are Germanic, and some people even claim that they were created by Christian monks, whether or not they were built by the Germans is unknown, but it can be said with certainty that they have used it for religious purposes at some point in history, the most likely culture to have built the Externsteine (the carvings and adaptations to the stones of course; not the stones themselves since those were created over thousands of years in a natural process) are the Funnelbeaker people.
The theory that they were built by the Celts is outdated since they did not even live in that area and the idea that they were created by Christian monks is totally laughable since Christianity did not even exist in that time yet.
The Sangerhausen stardisk:
In 1998 a prehistoric stardisk has been found by graverobbers near the German village of Nebra in Burgenlandkreis in the province of Sachsen Anhalt, fortunately the police was able to secure the disk before it was sold and apprehended the criminals, research in 2002 indicated that the disk is 3600 years old and that it is probably one of the oldest astronomical maps ever found.
The disk weighs 2 kilos (4.4 lbs) and has a diameter of 32 centimeters (12.6 inches), it is made of bronze and gold and it shows stars, the sun, the moon, and a ship figure, the stars probably represent the Pleiades.
The stardisk has been made around 1600BC and predates the Germanic and Celtic cultures, it was probably created by a local culture but although this stardisk is not Germanic it shows that astronomy was already practiced in earlier times, which is another reminder that we should not underestimate the knowledge of our ancestors.
Visby lenses:
On the island of Gotland in Scandinavia lenses have been found that were made from rock crystal, they have been named after Visby, which is the most important city of the island, and the best example that has been found so far is 50 millimeters (1.96 inches) in diameter and 30 millimeters (1.18 inch) thick at its centre.
The lenses are almost perfectly elliptical and very close to the modern ones we use today, they may have been used as magnifiers or to start a fire but researchers believe they may have even been used to create telescopes, the telescope was officially invented at the end of the 16th century by Sir Isaac Newton but the Visby lenses date from the 10th century AD(!), scientific tests have also proven that it is possible to use this lenses for a telescope.
There are always sceptics of course, and those claim that the Visby lenses were only used as ornaments or that they were made by the Byzantines and only ended up on Gotland via trade or as spoils of war... just another example of the small confidence we have in our ancestors.
Conclusion:
There is a lot of indirect proof that the early Germans practiced astronomy and it is certain that they at least practiced it at later periods.
More and more researchers are beginning to believe that our ancestors weren't the "barbarians" we believe them to be; they were humans too with the same brain capacity as us; astronomy has been practiced since the beginning of time and it is rediculous to think that we are the first ones to pounder the secrets of the universe while thousands have been before us.
Astronomy was very important to the ancients, they relied on it for time calculations, navigation, religion, etc.
In 772AD Charlemagne attacked the heathen Saxons and destroyed the Irminsul (a holy pillar), he also tried to destroy the Externsteine but when this failed he decided to dedicate the stones to the Christian God, he then ordered his artists to apply Christian motives and carvings to the rocks.
The Sangerhausen stardisk:
Visby lenses:
There is a lot of indirect proof that the early Germans practiced astronomy and it is certain that they at least practiced it at later periods.