Alfonsine tables

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Alfonsine tables

The Alfonsine tables (also sometimes spelled Alphonsine tables) were astronomical tables drawn up at Toledo by order of Alfonso X around 1252 to 1270 to correct the anomalies in the Tables of Toledo; they divided the year into 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes, 16 seconds. They were originally written in Spanish and later translated into Latin. Georg Purbach used the Alfonsine tables for his astronomy book Theoricae novae planetarum.

The Alfonsine tables were the most popular astronomical tables in Europe until late in the 16th century, when they were replaced by Erasmus Reinhold's Prutenic Tables which were based on Nicolaus Copernicus's De revolutionibus orbium coelestium. Erasmus Reinhold set out to re-calculate afresh, from Copernicus's basic parameters, a new set of astronomical tables. This was the Prussian Tables (1551), dedicated to Duke Albert of Prussia.