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The Almagest

As I've been getting into astronomy lately, I've discovered the identity of one of the first Western star catalogs : The Almagest.

First off, awesome name. It's not its original one, which was "Mathematike Syntaxis", but let's face it, it sounds much cooler. It was renamed after the Islamic world wanted a shorter name and called it "The Greatest" which translated from Arabic to Latin gave "the Almagest".

Most importantly, the Almagest is one of the most influential documents in astronomy history! It was the document of reference for European and Islamic astronomers til the 17th century. It was published around 150 AD, so long influence.

In it, Ptolemy, its author, documents his "findings" (most of which are now considered false) on the movement of stars and planets. He's the one who introduced the concept of the geocentric model of the solar system, hence its other name, the Ptolemaic model. (PS : geocentric = every planet and star revolves around the earth, for those who didn't know).

Among a lot of other stuff, he introduces his star catalog, with 1022 stars, considered the oldest western star catalog for a while. It also contains 48 constellations Ptolemy arranged himself, part of the basis of our modern ones.

Since then, we've found out his catalog was based of Hipparchus', who wrote his a few years before, and whose catalog is now considered the oldest western star catalog. It was more accurate in its star coordinates, as Ptolemy's calculations to adjust the coordinates to his time were off. Hipparchus' catalog doesn't have as cool a name, though.

Sources & extra info :

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Hello random people.

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