Ephemeris - History

History

• 2nd millennium BC — Panchanga tables based on Jyotisha in the Vedic period of Indian astronomy.
• 1st millennium BC — Ephemerides in Babylonian astronomy.
• 2nd century AD — the Almagest and the Handy Tables of Ptolemy
• 8th century AD — the Zij of Ibrāhīm al-Fazārī
• 9th century AD — the Zij of Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī
• 12th century AD — the Tables of Toledo, based largely on Arabic Zij sources of Islamic astronomy, were edited by Gerard of Cremona to form the standard European ephemeris until the Alfonsine tables.
• 13th century — the Zij-i Ilkhani, or Ilkhanic Tables, were compiled at the Maragheh observatory in Persia.
• 13th century — the Alfonsine tables were compiled in Spain to correct anomalies in the Tables of Toledo, remaining the standard European ephemeris until the Prutenic Tables almost 300 years later.
• 1408 — Chinese Ephemeris Table (copy in Pepysian Library, Cambridge, UK (refer book '1434'); Chinese tables believed known to Regiomontanus).
• 1496 — the Almanach Perpetuum of Abraão ben Samuel Zacuto (one of the first books published with a movable type and printing press in Portugal)
• 1504 — While shipwrecked on the island of Jamaica, Christopher Columbus successfully predicted a lunar eclipse for the natives, using the Ephemeris of the German astronomer Regiomontanus.
• 1551 — the Prutenic Tables of Erasmus Reinhold were published, based on Copernicus's theories.
• 1554 — Johannes Stadius published a well-known work known as Ephemerides novae at auctae that attempted to give accurate planetary positions. The effort was not entirely successful, and there were, for example, periodic errors in Stadius’ Mercury positions of up to ten degrees.
• 1627 — the Rudolphine Tables of Johannes Kepler became the new standard.