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The observatory of Alexandria with an
astronomer measuring the heavens with some instruments (cross staff,
mariner's astrolabe) which actually belong to a much later period
(source: Camille Flammarion, Astronomie Populaire: Description générale
du ciel, Paris: 1880).
This website provides JavaScript modules for generating
luni-solar and planetary ephemerides based on historically important
astronomical tables commonly employed by Near Eastern, Hellenistic, Islamic and
Western astronomers and astrologers from the beginning of our era to the
17th century.
The web versions of these tables contain modules for date
conversions between the particular calendar systems adopted in the original
tables and the commonly used Julian or Gregorian calendars. Other modules give
the geocentric positions of the Sun, the Moon and the planets for a given date
and specify the various auxiliary angles and other quantities that had to be
computed to obtain these positions. Also included are a number of modules which
tabulate various astrological aspects and several other horoscopic quantities.
These JavaScript modules are designed to supplement the
astronomical tables of Neugebauer (1912-’25, 1929), Schoch (1927), Tuckerman
(1962, 1964), Stahlman & Gingerich (1963), Goldstine (1973), Hunger & Dvorak
(1981), Gingerich & Welther (1983), Houlden & Stephenson (1986) and others,
which are based on modern astronomical theories of the luni-solar and planetary
motions and which have been widely used in the past century to date and verify
ancient astronomical records.
However, for many ancient astronomical records the
above-mentioned tables may give misleading results as the luni-solar and
planetary positions mentioned in these records were often not derived from
celestial observations but from calculations based on the astronomical tables
that were then current. The differences between the modern and the ancient
tables can easily amount to several degrees of arc and for the planet Mercury
they can even range up to ten degrees of arc or more.
Neugebauer, Paul Victor, Tafeln zur astronomischen Chronologie zum
Gebrauch für Historiker, Philologen und Astronomen (Leipzig:
Hinrichs’sche Buchhandlung, 1912-’25), 3 vols.
Schoch, Carl, Planeten-Tafeln für Jedermann zur Berechnung der
geozentrischen Örter der grossen Planeten (und des Mondes) für den Zeitraum
von 3400 v.Chr. bis 2600 n.Chr. ohne Anwendung der Logarithmen und
trigonometrischen Funktionen bis auf ein Zehntel Grad unter besonderer
Berücksichtigung der Babylonischen Astronomie (Berlin-Pankow: Linser,
1927).
Neugebauer, Paul Victor, Astronomische Chronologie (Berlin/Leipzig:
Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1929), 2 vols.
Tuckerman, Bryant, Planetary, Lunar, and Solar Positions, 601 B.C. to
A.D. 1, at Five-day and Ten-day Intervals (Philadelphia: American
Philosophical Society, 1962 [= Memoirs of the American Philosophical
Society, nr. 56]).
Stahlman, William D. & Gingerich, Owen, Solar and Planetary Longitudes
for Years –2500 to +2000 by 10-day Intervals (Madison: University of
Wisconsin Press, 1963).
Tuckerman, Bryant, Planetary, Lunar, and Solar Positions, A.D. 2 to
A.D. 1649, at Five-day and Ten-day Intervals (Philadelphia: American
Philosophical Society, 1964 [= Memoirs of the American Philosophical
Society, nr. 59]).
Goldstine, Herman Heine, New and Full Moons, 1001 B.C. to A.D. 1651
(Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1973 [= Memoirs of the
American Philosophical Society, nr. 94]).
Hunger, Hermann & Dvorak, Rudolf, Ephemeriden von Sonne, Mond und
hellen Planeten von –1000 bis –601 (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen
Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1981 [= Denkschriften der Österreichischen
Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Klasse,
nr. 155]).
Gingerich, Owen & Welther, Barbara, Planetary, Lunar, and Solar
Positions, New and Full Moons, A.D. 1650 – 1805 (Philadelphia: American
Philosophical Society, 1983 [= Memoirs of the American Philosophical
Society, nr. 59S]).
Houlden, Michael A. & Stephenson, Francis Richard, A Supplement to the
Tuckerman Tables
(Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1986 [= Memoirs of the
American Philosophical Society, nr. 170]).
