Publication
While publishing the Rudolphine Tables, Kepler was hard-pressed to fight off Tycho's numerous relatives. During the publication process, these relatives repeatedly tried to obtain control of the observations and the profit from the publication of the tables. They argued that Tycho's work should benefit his own family, and not one of Tycho's competitors. Kepler counter-argued that he and Tycho had been collaborating on the data for many years before Tycho's death. Kepler further asserted that he was responsible for most of the calculations and also for the organization of the data. In the end, Kepler did win control of the tables and published them himself, while the Brahe family got no benefit from them.
Tycho had intended that the tables should have a dedication to Emperor Rudolf II, but by 1627, when the tables were published, Rudolf II had died, so instead the tables were dedicated to Emperor Ferdinand II but are named after Rudolph II. They contain positions for the 1,006 stars measured by Tycho Brahe, and more than 400 stars from Ptolemy and Johann Bayer, with directions and tables for locating the planets of the solar system. The tables included many function tables of logarithms and antilogarithms, and instructive examples for computing planetary positions.
For most stars these tables were accurate to within one arc minute, and were the first to include corrective factors for atmospheric refraction. The tables were sufficiently accurate to predict a transit of Mercury observed by Pierre Gassendi in 1631 and a transit of Venus observed by Jeremiah Horrox in 1639.
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