Kepler's Optical Part of Astronomy (1604)
Kepler’s Optical Part of Astronomy (1604): Introducing the Ecliptic Instrument Giora Hon University of Haifa Yaakov Zik University of Haifa For William H. Donahue The year 2009 marks the 400th anniversary of the publication of one of the most revolutionary scientiªc texts ever written. In this book, appropriately en- titled, Astronomia nova, Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) developed an as- tronomical theory which departs fundamentally from the systems of Ptolemy and Copernicus. One of the great innovations of this theory is its dependence on the science of optics. The declared goal of Kepler in his earlier publication, Paralipomena to Witelo whereby The Optical Part of Astronomy is Treated (Ad Vitellionem Paralipomena, quibus astronomiae pars optica traditvr, 1604), was to solve difªculties and expose illusions astron- omers face when conducting astronomical observations with optical instru- ments. To avoid observational errors that had plagued the antiquated mea- Early versions of this paper were presented in XXV Scientiªc Instruments Commission Sympo- sium, “East and West: The Common European Heritage,” held in Krakow, Poland, 10–14 September, 2006; and in the meeting of the History of Science Society held in Vancouver, No- vember 2–5, 2006. We are indebted to the participants of these meetings for their com- ments. In particular, we thank Wilbur Applebaum for his valuable remarks. We thank Ron Alter of the University of Haifa Library for his help in acquiring material for our re- search. We are grateful to Dov Freiman and Avishi Marson of Elbit Systems, Electro- Optics ELOP, Ltd., for instructive discussions and optical simulations. We thank Ilan Manulis, director of The Harry Kay Observatory at the Technoda, Hadera, Israel, for using the Observatory infrastructure in September 2007.
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