Astronomical Images : Rising and setting of planets: the case of the Moon

Peter Apian

Astronomical Images

<p style='text-align: justify;'>This Venetian edition of Peuerbach's <i>Theoricae novae </i>was copied from Apian's 1528 edition, printed in Ingolstadt. Subsequently, the work went through several further editions. Apian's edition added new woodcuts as well as notations to some of those from earlier editions. Some errors in the woodcuts in the 1528 edition were repeated in this Venetian edition of 1537. Peuerbach explained that there were three reasons why the Moon after its conjunction with the Sun sometimes appears sooner and sometimes later. One reason was that if there was a conjunction under the ecliptic in the half between the end of Sagittarius and the end of Gemini, then when the Sun was setting on the horizon there would be more degrees in the circle of the revolution of the Moon from the Moon to the horizon than from the Moon to the Sun with respect to the zodiac. Accordingly, in the northern climes it will be visible sooner than if it had been in the other half of the zodiac</p>