The Southern Limits of the Ancient Star Catalog and the Commentary of Hipparchos
Abstract
A reply to enormous Journal for the History of Astronomy Ptolemy-apologies by B.Schaefer and J.Evans, this is the most comprehensive of all star-visibility studies of the authorship of the Ancient Star Catalog, drawing on previously-unplumbed ancient testimony and previously untapped modern NOAA atmospheric data. Additionally, comparing the horizons of Hipparchos' & Ptolemy's stars shows none of the expected 5° difference due to the 5° gap between their latitudes. Historians' treatments of ancient heliacal-risings data have assumed that they do not refer to visibility on the horizon even though Ptolemy's Planetary Hypotheses said they do. The question is resolved by resort to the opposite phenomenon, acronychal rising, which historians hadn't realized cannot even be defined except on the horizon, where Ptolemy reports planets and the brightest stars were seen. The consistent conclusion from such evidences is that on the best observing nights atmospheric opacity was virtually Rayleigh plus ozone, or about 0.14 magnitudes/atm.
- Publication:
-
DIO
- Pub Date:
- September 2002
- Bibcode:
- 2002DIO....12....3P
- Keywords:
-
- Hipparchos;
- Ancient Star Catalog;
- star-catalog horizons;
- atmospheric opacity;
- Ara;
- Rayleigh extinction;
- ozone extinction;
- aerosol extinction;
- visibility at horizon;
- plagiarism;
- fraud;
- Ptolemy;
- Tycho;
- Hevelius;
- James Evans;
- Bradley Schaefer;
- Carina;
- Eudoxos