Previous Tables
Star tables had been produced for many centuries and were used to establish the position of the planets relative to the fixed stars (particularly the twelve constellations used in astrology) on a specific date in order to construct horoscopes. Until the end of the 16th century, the most widely used had been the Alphonsine tables, first produced in the 13th century and regularly updated thereafter. These were based on a Ptolemeic, geocentric model of the solar system. Although the Alphonsine tables were not very accurate, nothing else was available and so they continued to be used.
In 1551, following the publication of De revolutionibus orbium coelestium by Nicholas Copernicus, Erasmus Reinhold produced the Prutenic Tables based on a heliocentric model of the solar system, but these were no more accurate than the earlier tables.
Read more about this topic: Rudolphine Tables
Famous quotes containing the words previous and/or tables:
“History is fond of her grandchildren, for it offers them the marrow of the bones, which the previous generation had hurt its hands in breaking.”
—Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky (1828–1889)
“O these encounterers, so glib of tongue,
That give a coasting welcome ere it comes,
And wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts
To every ticklish reader! Set them down
For sluttish spoils of opportunity
And daughters of the game.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)