Astronomical Images : Table of eclipses

Georg von Peuerbach

Astronomical Images

<p style='text-align: justify;'>Georg Peuerbach (Georgius Aunpekh) was born in Peuerbach, near Linz. He studied at the University of Vienna, obtaining his BA in 1448 and MA in 1453. He held positions as court astrologer to the king of Hungary, and then to Emperor Frederick III. The <i>Tabulae eclypsium</i>, originally dedicated to Johann Vitez, Bishop of Grosswardein (now Oradea, Hungary), were probably completed around 1459 and is Peuerbach's most impressive work. The tables allow the calculation of the course of the Sun and Moon and therefore the prediction of eclipses. Although they were based on the <i>Alphonsine Tables</i>, they also contain new computations by Peuerbach. This page is from a larger set of tables needed to determine true syzygy, namely a conjunction or opposition of the Sun with the Moon when the elongation between the two is either 0 degrees (conjunction) or 180 degrees (opposition). A conjunction of the Sun and the Moon results in a solar eclipse, and their opposition in a lunar eclipse. The table of 'the true distance of conjunction and of opposition from the mean' charts the amount of time needed to add or subtract from the mean syzygy in order to obtain the true syzygy. It has two arguments: the mean solar anomaly (listed horizontally) and the mean lunar anomaly (the left-hand column). This double-argument table is based on the fourteenth-century tables developed by John of Murs and Firmin of Beauval, but Peuerbach increased dramatically the number of values provided.</p>