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Showing content from https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-59909-0_3 below:

The Role of Ephemerides from Ptolemy to Kepler

Abstract

Celestial timekeeping relied in the first instance on the movements of the stars and planets. The principal systematic positions of planets are recorded in ephemerides, which are primarily predictions, not observations. Prior to the invention of printing, ephemerides are extremely rare, which gives lie to the widespread mythology that astronomers before the days of printing were eagerly observing the heavens to add epicycles to improve the accuracy of the tables.

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Acknowledgements

The author wishes to acknowledge the assistance in the early part of this essay from Richard Kremer, Alexander Jones, and Johannes Thomann.

Author information Authors and Affiliations
  1. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Owen Gingerich

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Owen Gingerich .

Editor information Editors and Affiliations
  1. Time Department, International Bureau for Weights and Measures, Sevres, France

    Elisa Felicitas Arias

  2. Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory, Krugersdorp, South Africa

    Ludwig Combrinck

  3. Vatican Observatory, Tucson, Arizona, USA

    Pavel Gabor

  4. HM Nautical Almanac Office, UK Hydrographic Office HM Nautical Almanac Office, Taunton, Somerset, United Kingdom

    Catherine Hohenkerk

  5. Department of Astronomy, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA

    P. Kenneth Seidelmann

Copyright information

© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG

About this paper Cite this paper

Gingerich, O. (2017). The Role of Ephemerides from Ptolemy to Kepler. In: Arias, E., Combrinck, L., Gabor, P., Hohenkerk, C., Seidelmann, P. (eds) The Science of Time 2016. Astrophysics and Space Science Proceedings, vol 50. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59909-0_3

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