ALBATEGNIUS (c. 850--929), an Arab prince and astronomer,
correctly designated Mahommed ben Gebir al Batani, his surname
being derived from his native town, Batan in Mesopotamia. From
his observations at Aracte and Damascus, where he died, he was
able to correct some of Ptolemy's results, previously taken on
trust. He compiled new tables of the sun and moon, long
accepted as authoritative, discovered the movement of the sun's
apogee, and assigned to annual precession the improved value of
55" Perhaps independently of Aryabhatta (born at Pataliputra
on the Ganges 476 A.D.), he introduced the use of sines in
calculation, and partially that of tangents. His principal
work, De Motu Stellarum, was published at Nuremberg in 1537
by Melanchthon, in a blundering Latin translation by Plato
Tiburtinus (fl. 1116), annotated by Regiomontanus. A reprint
appeared at Bologna in 1645. The original MS. is preserved
at the Vatican; and the Escorial library possesses in MS. a
treatise of some value by him on astronomical chronology.
Albategnius takes the highest rank among Arab astronomers.
See Houzeau, Bibliographie astronomique, i. 467; M. Marie, Histoire
des sciences, ii. 113; R. Wolf, Geschichte der Astronomie,
p. 67; Delambre, Hist. de l'astr. au moyen age, ch. ii.;
Phil. Trans. 1693 (913), where E. Halley supplies corrections
to some of the observations recorded in De Motu Stellarum.
Initial text from 1911 encyclopedia -- Please update as needed
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