Astronomical Images : The order and proportion of celestial orbs according to Copernicus
Johannes Kepler
Astronomical Images
<p style='text-align: justify;'>Plates [<i>Tabellae</i>] 1, 2, 4 and 5 of Johannes Kepler's <i>Mysterium cosmographicum</i> were, as Gerd Grasshoff has shown, designed by Kepler's collaborator in production of the work, his former teacher at Tuebingen Michael Maestlin, who had insisted on the need for diagrams to convey the central arguments of the work. They represent the specificities of the Copernican planetary models as calculated by Maestlin on the basis of Reinhold's <i>Prutenic Tables</i>. Plate 1, seen here, shows the deferent circles of the planets and their angular sizes with respect to the Earth.</p>