Wikinventia — Atlas of discoveries and inventions · Middle Age

Correction of the Ptolemaic model — Al-Battani

~900 AD · Transmission: Silenced
AstronomyMethodArab

Al-Battānī measured with unprecedented precision the precession of the equinoxes (54.5"/year versus the modern value of 50.3"), the obliquity of the ecliptic, and the eccentricity of the solar orbit. His astronomical tables were used by Copernicus 700 years later, cited explicitly in De Revolutionibus.

InstitutionObservatory of Raqqa (present-day Syria)
Historical regionAbbasid Caliphate
Primary sourceAl-Battānī — Kitāb az-Zīj aṣ-Ṣābiʾ (Opus Astronomicum). Latin edition: Nallino, C.A. (1903)
Secondary sourceMacTutor, St Andrews — Al-Battani
Original languageclassical Arabic
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