Almagest Book XI: Constructing the Tables of Anomaly

In the last chapter, Ptolemy walked us through a light proof on how to find the apparent position of a planet. But, immediately in this chapter, Ptolemy tells us that going through that process every time is troublesome:

[A]lthough that method is the only one which provides a fully accurate solution to the problem, it is too cumbersome to be convenient for [astronomical] investigations.

What is Ptolemy’s solution?

As you probably expect, it’s to make tables that allow us to calculate quickly:

We have constructed, for each of the five planets, a table which is easy to use as we could devise, while at the same time being very close to full accuracy.

In this chapter, we’ll follow along as Ptolemy explains how they are laid out.

However, Ptolemy’s description is not well explained, so I will interweave this with a more comprehensive explanation based on Neugebauer’s History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy. Continue reading “Almagest Book XI: Constructing the Tables of Anomaly”

Almagest Book XI: Second Iteration for Saturn

With our corrections for the intervals from Saturn’s oppositions in hand, we’re ready to repeat the calculation. As with before, I’m doing this in a Google Sheet to speed things along. This means that I’ll be using modern trig and that the figures I give her may be subject to some rounding as we go since the Sheet is saving higher precision behind the curtain.

We’ll begin with the same diagram as before:

Continue reading “Almagest Book XI: Second Iteration for Saturn”