Talk:Almagest

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Possible See Also item: New Almagest

I'm not proficient enough to know if we could add a See Also item to link to a sub-heading in a Wikipedia article. In Giovanni Battista Riccioli there's a subhead, Almagestum Novum, which begins, "Riccioli's most significant works was his 1651 Almagestum Novum (New Almagest),[7] an encyclopedic work consisting of over 1500 folio pages (38 cm x 25 cm) densely packed with text, tables, and illustrations. It became a standard technical reference book for astronomers all over Europe..." Seems like that would be a value-added See Also! Thoughts? Bob Enyart, Denver KGOV radio host (talk) 02:49, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Ptolemy cheating

Please add that for centuries, quite a few astronomers have accused Ptolemy for fabricating observations to support his theory when he wrote the Almagest. The largest attack comes from Robert R. Newton, 1977, The Crime of Claudius Ptolemy. Most other researchers have had problems accepting the idea that Ptolemy cheated. A discussion of Newton's accusations can be found in Gerd Grasshoff, 1990, The History of Ptolemy's Star Catalogue, pages 79-91. Most researchers prefer to believe that Ptolemy suffered from some form of systematic error, too small for him to discover himself. But there are also astronomers who more recently have added to the accusations, like Dennis Rawlins. 92.34.201.123 (talk) 15:40, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

'Books VII and VIII' not displayed to the reader

Dear colleagues,
I am leaving the present message out of courtesy to other editors watching this article.
I recently noticed that, in the section headed Books, the entry for Books VII and VIII is not displayed to the reader, even though the wikitext source is present to editors, in edit mode. I have now determined that the problem is caused by the presence of the following paragraphs, especially including the blank lines which I have replaced by 2x "<br />" each, in the wikitext quoted below:

(The catalogue actually contained 1,028 entries, but three of these were deliberate duplicates, because Ptolemy regarded certain stars as being shared between adjacent constellations. Three other entries were non-stellar, i.e. the Double Cluster in Perseus, M44 (Praesepe) in Cancer, and the globular cluster Omega Centauri.)

Ptolemy states that the longitudes (which increase due to precession) are for the beginning of the reign of Antoninus Pius (138 AD), whereas the latitudes do not change with time. (But see below, under The star catalog.) The constellations north of the zodiac and the northern zodiac constellations (Aries through Virgo) are in the table at the end of Book VII, while the rest are in the table at the beginning of Book VIII. The brightest stars were marked first magnitude (m = 1), while the faintest visible to the naked eye were sixth magnitude (m = 6). Each numerical magnitude was considered twice the brightness of the following one, which is a logarithmic scale. (The ratio was subjective as no photodetectors existed.) This system is believed to have originated with Hipparchus. The stellar positions too are of Hipparchan origin, despite Ptolemy's claim to the contrary.

Ptolemy identified 48 constellations: The 12 of the zodiac, 21 to the north of the zodiac, and 15 to the south.

In order to verify the cause of this problem, I created a sandbox version of the present article, in which you can trace my tests in 'View history', as usual. I will now proceed with relocating the above paragraphs and their citations into a new 'Notes' section. In addition, I am proposing to consolidate all citations in a consistent style, similar to the approach taken in the articles on Australasian Antarctic Expedition or Jack Whiting (actor), for example.
I would therefore welcome the views and suggestions of other editors, and will implement these changes into my sandbox before carrying them over into the present article in mainspace, unless anyone proposes another solution. Thank you.
With kind regards;
Patrick. ツ Pdebee.^{(talk)(become old-fashioned!)} 12:52, 7 April 2023 (UTC)
PS: I have also ordered Ridpath's book, to determine the page numbers relevant to the cited text and create {{cite book}} templates, since these page numbers are missing from the web version of this book.

References

Dear colleagues,
As an update to the above, I have now been able to elucidate the cause of the above problem: the {{unordered list}} template was preventing the entry for Books VII and VIII from being displayed to the reader because the prose at that entry contained equal signs ("="), such as in ({{mvar|m}} = 1), for example. To fix the problem (and also overhaul the referencing method), I successfully applied the following changes in my sandbox copy of the article, and also to its original version in mainspace:

1. renamed the Books section to The Syntaxis Mathematica books, to differentiate it from the new 'Books' subsection in the restructured 'References' section. (see point 5. below);  Done

2. removed the {{unordered list}} template and added a bullet in front of each Book entry;  Done

3. inserted the extra prose (causing the issue in Books VII and VIII) into an 'explanatory note' using a {{refn}} template with a group name of group=note, making sure to precede the content of that note with a numbered parameter to address the issue introduced by the '=' signs, as explained here;  Done

4. converted the <ref>...</ref> tags to {{sfn}} templates for Ridpath's book (1998), linked to a {{cite book}} template relocated into a new 'Books' subsection in the new 'Citations' section;  Done

5. I have also restructured the 'References' section and subsections (including a new 'Further reading' section for those listed books not used as references), all in order to adopt the good practices used in Australasian Antarctic Expedition, a featured article.  Done

6. All that's left to do is to relocate all citation templates from the body of the article into the new 'Sources' subsections, and replace all <ref>...</ref> tags with {{sfn}} templates, which will only take me a few hours.  Done (See all diffs.)

I will now apply the remaining changes (point 6.) in the near future, and will update its status on completion. Should other editors disagree with any or all these changes, then please let me know, or simply revert them. Thank you.
With kind regards;
Patrick. ツ Pdebee.^{(talk)(become old-fashioned!)} 15:57, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

Final update: all completed today!
Patrick. ツ Pdebee.^{(talk)(become old-fashioned!)} 17:48, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Name

The name section doesn't cite a single source. This should either be removed or sources added. 76.186.217.39 (talk) 21:17, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Map of zodiac area

Map of the part of the sky near the ecliptic, showing the convex hulls of Ptolemy's constellations. The light and darker brown segments along the ecliptic correspond to the twelve zodiac signs used by Ptolemy and other ancient astronomers as part of the designation of longitude. The pink band is from latitude -10° to +10°. Note that Ophiuchus crosses the ecliptic, even though it is not one of the twelve zodiac signs.

Should we put in this map in the section about the star catalog? Eric Kvaalen (talk) 10:02, 18 February 2024‎ (UTC)

No, I don't think it's relevant to the subject. And unsourced. Skeptic2 (talk) 17:31, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

It's tangentially relevant, but it doesn't seem necessary to me, and this diagram is very wide. –jacobolus (t) 21:09, 18 February 2024 (UTC)