The Enigma of Ptolemy's Catalogue of Stars

The standard edition is Hipparchus, In Arati et Eudoxi phaenomena commentariorum, e6d. and transl. by Manitius K. (Leipzig, 1894).

Pliny , Historia naturalis, 2.95.

Readily available in English in Ptolemy's Almagest, transl. by Toomer G. J. (London, 1984).

Suidas , ed. Adler (Leipzig, 1928–38), ii, 657.

Of the earlier writers, Delambre has been the most influential: Delambre J. B. J. , Histoire de l'astronomie ancienne (2 vols, Paris, 1817), ii, 250ff.

de Laplace P.-M. , Exposition du système du monde, 4th edn (Paris, 1813), 383.

Peters C. H. F. and Knobel E. B. , Ptolemy's catalogue of stars: A revision of the Almagest (Washington, D.C., 1915).

Boll F. , “Die Sternkataloge des Hipparch und des Ptolemaios”, Bibliotheca mathematica, 3 Folge, ii (1901), 185–95.

Dreyer J. L. E. , “On the origin of the Ptolemaic star catalogue”, Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, lxxvii (1917), 528–39; lxxviii (1918), 343–9.

Dreyer , op. cit. (ref. 9, 1918).

Vogt H. , “Versuch einer Wiederstellung von Hipparchs Fixsternverzeichnis”, Astronomische Nachrichten, ccxxiv (1925), cols 2–54.

Gundel W. , Neue astrologische Texte des Hermes Trismegistos (Abhandlungen der Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Abteilung, NF, xii (1935), 123ff.).

Neugebauer O. , A history of ancient mathematical astronomy (3 vols, Berlin, 1975), 286.

Newton R. R. , The crime of Claudius Ptolemy (Baltimore, 1977); idem, “On the fractions of degrees in an ancient star catalogue”, Quarterly journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, xx (1979), 383–94.

Rawlins D. , “An investigation of the ancient star catalogue”, Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, xciv (1982), 359–73.

Evans J. , “On the origin of the Ptolemaic star catalogue”, Journal for the history of astronomy, xviii (1987), 155–72, 233–78.

Shevchenko M. , “An analysis of errors in the star catalogues of Ptolemy and Ulugh Beg”, ibid., xxi (1990), 187–201.

Wlodarczyk J. , “Notes on the compilation of Ptolemy's catalogue of stars”, ibid., xxi (1990), 283–95.

Wlodarczyk J. , “Observing with the armillary astrolabe”, ibid., xviii (1987), 173–95.

Grasshoff G. , The history of Ptolemy's star catalogue (New York, 1990).