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Book XII covers stations and retrograde motion, which occurs when planets appear to pause, then briefly reverse their motion against the background of the zodiac. Ptolemy understood these terms to apply to Mercury and Venus as well as the outer planets. Book XIII covers motion in latitude, that is, the deviation of planets from the ecliptic ...
The work's enduring significance is attributed to several factors: Ptolemy's reputation as one of the greatest philosophers and scientists of the ancient world, [13] the text's astrological importance as one of the oldest complete manuals on that subject, [14] and the unprecedented order and quality of Ptolemy's astrological explanations.
Ptolemy's Handy Tables (Ancient Greek: πρόχειροι κανόνες, romanized: Procheiroi kanones) is a collection of astronomical tables that second century astronomer Ptolemy created after finishing the Almagest. The Handy Tables elaborated the astronomical tables of the Almagest and included usage instructions, but left out the ...
The Canon of Kings was a dated list of kings used by ancient astronomers as a convenient means to date astronomical phenomena, such as eclipses.For a period, the Canon was preserved by the astronomer Claudius Ptolemy, and is thus known sometimes as Ptolemy's Canon.
The book was thoroughly illustrated along with observations and descriptions of the stars, their positions (copied from Ptolemy's Almagest with the longitudes increased by 12° 42' to account for the precession), their magnitudes (brightness) and their color. Notably, al-Sufi improved upon Ptolemy's system for measuring star brightness.
The angular rate at which the epicycle traveled was not constant unless he measured it from another point which is now called the equant (Ptolemy did not give it a name). It was the angular rate at which the deferent moved around the point midway between the equant and the Earth (the eccentric) that was constant; the epicycle center swept out ...
It originally consisted of 5 books, of which books 1–3 and the beginning of book 4 are extant. It describes how to use Ptolemy's tables and gives details on the reasoning behind the calculations. [1] Little Commentary on Ptolemy's Handy Tables. This work survives complete. It consists of one book and is intended as a primer for students. [1]
A 16th-century engraving of Ptolemy. Ptolemy's Optics is a 2nd-century book on geometrical optics, dealing with reflection, refraction, and colour. The book was most likely written late in Ptolemy's life, after the Almagest, during the 160s. [1] The work is of great importance in the early history of optics. The Greek text has been lost completely.