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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Robert H. van Gent
Date: 2024 Jan 30, 15:01 -0800
Hi Frank,
Your claim that “Astronomical "epochs" have preferentially used the zero year as the start of each century for... well, for centuries!” is correct for the last two or three centuries but this is certainly not true for most of the 17th century.
Note that Tycho Brahe’s famous star catalogue which was used for most of the 17th century started at the ‘completum’ of 1600, i.e. 1 January 1601.
https://archive.org/details/operaomniaedidit02brahuoft/page/258/mode/1up
Similarly, Johannes Kepler, in the solar, lunar and planetary tables in his Tabula Rudolphinae (1627)
https://www.e-rara.ch/zut/content/titleinfo/2449790
started each century with the completion of the year zero
https://www.e-rara.ch/zut/content/zoom/2449986
and his star catalogue (an expanded version of Tycho’s star catalogue) also adopted the same epoch of that Tycho, i.e. 1 January 1601.
https://www.e-rara.ch/zut/content/zoom/2450048
Rob van Gent
