Edward Gresham,Copernican Cosmology,and Planetary Occultations in Pre-Telescopic Astronomy

Abstract

This article introduces an understudied source in the history of astronomy, the Astrostereon or the Discourse of the Falling of the Planet (1603). Written by the English astrologer Edward Gresham, this text presents, among other things, the earliest known set of predicted planetary occultations (for 1603–1604) and the use of these phenomena to defend the Copernican cosmology. We analyse those predictions and then briefly survey all known pre-telescopic observations of reported planetary occulations and the motivations for such observations. These data suggest that for early observers, the greater the difference in apparent brightness between the two occulting bodies, the greater the angular separation could be for an occultation nonetheless to be reported. An appendix seeks to explain this finding by considering several factors known from modern experimental analyses of human visual performance.