Books

Ulm: Jonas Saur, 1627. First edition. “MY CHIEF ASTRONOMICAL WORK” (KEPLER). First edition, a copy with contemporary annotations, of this great scientific classic, “the chief vehicle for the recognition of his astronomical accomplishments” (DSB). “The tables are extraordinarily important, for they document in a unique way Kepler’s great contributions to astronomy” (Gingerich). This was Kepler’s last lifetime publication and his crowning achievement, “the foundation of all planetary calculations for over a century” (Sparrow). Kepler himself called the tables “my chief astronomical work” (Gingerich). “In 1601 Kepler was charged by the dying Tycho Brahe to complete his proposed Rudolphine tables of planetary motion, to be based upon Tycho’s great storehouse of observations. When the tables finally appeared twenty-six years later, Kepler excused the long delay in his preface, in which he cited not only salary and wartime difficulties, but also ‘the novelty…