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Old October 26th 17, 06:21 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Gerald Kelleher
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Default Time and timekeeping

On Thursday, October 26, 2017 at 9:13:32 AM UTC+1, Martin Brown wrote:

Astronomers realised this a very long time ago by the Babylonians.


[ In 1669, Christiaan Huygens (1629 - 1695) published the first ‘modern’ table of the Equation of Time in his “Instructions Concerning the Use of Pendulum-Watches for finding the Longitude at Sea”. Thereafter the Equation of Time became the concern of time tellers and thus sundial makers. It was around this time that the term Equatio Dierum translated to Equation of Time. ]


http://www.precisedirections.co.uk/S...rly%20Days.pdf




Thank you for posting this website however the original proposal of Huygens is flawed in respect to the Equation of Time as I have pointed out many times using his own words. It helps genuine theorists comes to grips with Newton's attempt to explain the Equation of Time as 'absolute/relative time' even though it is a timekeeping facility.

Newton's idea that geocentric observations transfer into heliocentric conclusions is based on Huygens flawed principle which attempts to squeeze the Equation of Time into the orbital period of the Earth -

" Here take notice, that the Sun or the Earth passeth the 12. Signes, or makes an entire revolution in the Ecliptick in 365 days, 5 hours 49 min. or there about, and that those days, reckon'd from noon to noon, are of different lenghts; as is known to all that are vers'd in Astronomy. Now between the longest and the shortest of those days, a day may be taken of such a length, as 365 such days, 5. hours &c. (the same numbers as before) make up, or are equall to that revolution:" Huygens

Your website references Ptolemy but here is where the original Sun centered astronomers got into trouble which they couldn't resolve or could only half resolve.

". . . the ancient hypotheses clearly fail to account for certain important matters. For example, they do not comprehend the causes of the numbers, extents and durations of the retrogradations and of their agreeing so well with the position and mean motion of the sun. Copernicus alone gives an explanation to those things that provoke astonishment among other astronomers, thus destroying the source of astonishment, which lies in the ignorance of the causes." Kepler 1596, Mysterium Cosmographicum

If anyone has regard for the astronomers going all the way back to antiquity they will not take the opportunity to focus on me but look at the necessary partitioning between predictive astronomy (calendar based) and a new software program that models motions and structure outside a celestial sphere contrivance.