Timocharis
Encyclopedia : T : TI : TIM : Timocharis
Timocharis of Alexandria (circa 320 BC - 260 BC) was a Greek astronomer and philosopher. Likely born in Alexandria, he was a contemporary of Euclid.
In approximately 3rd century BC, with the help of Aristillus, he created the first star catalogue in the Western world. (His worked was predated by that of the Chinese astronmer Gan De.) Over 150 years later, Hipparchus would compare his own star catalogue to Timocharis' and discover that the longitude of the stars had changed over time, which led him to determine the first value of the precession of the equinoxes.
The Timocharis crater on the Moon is named after him.
External links
- [Windows to the Universe: Discover Mercury]
- [The Astronomer Hipparchus of Rhodes] - mentions Timocharis' contribution
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.