Taking the cases of two Korean court astronomers' journeys to Beijing in the seven-teenth and eighteenth centuries, this article examines how the political hierarchy between the Qing and Chosŏn dynasties conditioned Korean astronomers' effort to learn the Shixian li, the official calendrical system of the Qing. The difficulties the Korean astronomers met in their missions to Bei-jing, the measures of the Chosŏn court to support the astronomers' travel, and the actual process of the two astronomers' mission are to be examined. How then did the Korean astronomers view their mission and its difficulties? Curiously, they did not consider the travel to Beijing only as hardships to be avoided;rather, they took it as an opportunity to enhance their socio-professional interests. Sig-nificantly, they portrayed themselves as the astronomers of a“marginal state,” who could not expect to be competent in their specialty without paying pilgrimages to the imperial metropolis. This rhetoric of modesty reflected the puzzled position of the Korean official astronomers, who had to promote their socio-cultural interests only by negating their ability to be competent in their specialty on their own.%金尚范和许远分别是17世纪中叶和18世纪初期朝鲜宫廷天文学家的代表人物，在引进大清时宪历这件事上，做出了很大的贡献。文章试图从微观的角度出发，拟对金尚范和许远赴北京学习时宪历计算法的具体过程进行更加深入地探索。主要从天文学家们在北京旅行时遇到了怎样的困难，朝廷为他们的旅行提供过哪些制度方面的帮助，以及他们的实际学习是以怎样的方式进行的，这样几个方面来进行考察。同时，由此来揭示朝清之间的政治等级关系是怎样在社会与认识论的角度，制约天文学传播之具体过程的；朝鲜天文学者们对此又是怎样认识的，做出了哪些对应。通过对金尚范和许远事例的分析，我们还可以了解到，他们并非将朝清在政治和科学方面的不平等关系，单纯地当作是一种约束，而是还将其作为一种条件，在追名逐利的官场生活中加以活用。与此同时，他们还运用了一种独特而谦逊的修辞方式，即承认自己在科学方面是无能的。
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