Nicholas Copernicus

[kev 102 42]

what planet did he not veiw, just heard this on the radio............kev

[barkis]

Bit of a Loner old Copernicus Kev. Did his naked eye Observing from a turret in a Cathedral wall. No telescope for him, they hadn't been invented. I don't think he ever saw Mercury, and of course Neptune and Uranus were not discovered at that time.

Plenty about the man on Wiki. Kev:)

Ron.

[ollypenrice]

I have no idea apart from the outer planets (beyond Saturn that is.) I too would guess at Mercury, though he did give relative planet-sun distances of staggering accuracy for all the known planets. What he couldn't do was calibrate them. Enter the transit oif Venus...

Did the programme talk about his reluctance to publish? The great debate is between those of Allan Chapman's mind (he feared ridicule) and those of Arthur Koestler's (he knew his system was really a mess and not at all what he had set out to prove in the Comentariolus, his much earlier staement of intent.) While I bow to Allan Chapman's scholarship I do find Koestler more convincing on this.

Olly

[kev 102 42]

It was Mercury, The programme briefully talked about top Astronomers never veiwing Mercury or only once or twice,I will have to read up on tbhis interresting Chap........kev

[acey]

How is it known that Copernicus never saw Mercury? I'm surprised - all the planets out to Saturn are easy naked-eye objects (at the right time). A quick bit of googling yields several pages saying things like "legend has it that Copernicus never saw Mercury" and "they say he never saw it", so it would be good to know the source. Maybe it's just a legend.

[kniclander]

There are two really good books that I know of -the Koestler one is, I think "Sleepwalkers" or is it "Timewalkers" - I can't remember. There's also a really good sort of historical novel about Copernicus, kepler and Newton (although the Newton section is a bit pants) by an english guy but I cant rememer the name AAAARGH - I think it began with B but I will find it....

[kniclander]

yes, it's the "Revolutions trilogy" by John Banville:)

[Space Bat]

He did have people help him with his observations to help publish his 'De revolutionibus orbium coelestium'

Perhaps assuming that he never actually observed Mercury on the basis of that is pretty hard to substantiate

[acey]

I've been leafing through my copy of On the Revolutions and can't find any indication there (or in the editor's introduction). He used existing data (going back to Hipparchus and Ptolemy) but also made observations of his own. I've got Owen Gingerich's book on Copernicus somewhere and will see if I can find anything there (if I can find the book...).