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Re: Eclipses and longitude
From: Alexandre Eremenko
Date: 2026 Aug 24, 14:57 -0700
From: Alexandre Eremenko
Date: 2026 Aug 24, 14:57 -0700
Frank,
Thanks for your comments. I know almost nothing about Ptolemy's circumstances, and I suppose nobody knows (though I own a book, his biography written by a modern researcher:-) In particular I do not know whether he was rich or not. They say that he erected a stone column, "Canobic Inscription" in which the essential numeric data from Almagest were inscribed. This must have been expensive.
Actually I do not remember ANY record of attempts to find longitude by occultation or eclipse before Columbus. And Columbus longitude had some ridiculously large error.
Alex.
