Hipparchus star catalogue and magnitude scale
Primer catálogo estelar y escala de magnitudes
- Date
- c. 129 BCE · confidence medium
- Place
- Rhodes, Greece
- Credited to
- Hipparchus of Nicaea
- People
- 👤 Hiparco de Nicea190 BCE–120 BCE
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
Hipparchus catalogued about 850 stars with coordinates and classified them into six magnitudes of brightness, a scale that still underlies modern photometry. Perhaps motivated by the appearance of a 'new star'.
The catalogue was lost; fragments were recovered in 2022 in a palimpsest from Saint Catherine's Monastery.
What it led to
- System of stellar magnitudes
- Almagest catalogue
- Astrometry