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Re: Lunar eclipse report
From: Alexandre Eremenko
Date: 2004 Oct 30, 18:56 -0500
From: Alexandre Eremenko
Date: 2004 Oct 30, 18:56 -0500
Dear Herbert, The problem of measuring "elapsed time" was soleved in "antiquity" very well, as I undrstand. By means of "clepsydra, the water clock". The sophisticated design of the water clocks I've seen, suggests that they were capable to measure time to the precision of less than 1 minute per day, I suppose. Unfortunately none of these survived, and I know of no historians who seriously invetsigated the question of their precision. Any suggestions? Alex. On Sat, 30 Oct 2004, Herbert Prinz wrote: > the REAL > problem was to measure > elapsed time between the celestial signals > (eclipse phases, occultation, > whatever) and the events that established local time (meridian > transits). In antiquity, local time would more likely have been > established by sun observation than from the stars. > From the top of my > head, Strabo acknowledges this, but I can't > dig out the reference now.