Dear all, In the article "A universal Capuchin Dial", published in the NASS bulletin "The Compendium", vol. 6, no. 1, march 1999, we ( Mac Oglesby, Bill Maddux, Warren Thom and Fer de Vries ) used the "menaeus"-construction to lay out the angles for the sun's declination. As we noted Oronce Finé used this construction, but he has made an error, although in the same book he also used the correct construction. His error is known as the Error Orontii.
In the same article we wrote that Eise Eisinga did the same. In his book ( 1762 ) a wrong as well a right construction can be seen. Yesterday I received the new French book L'Astrolabe by Raymond D'Hollander and, surprisingly, the same happens again....... On page 351 we see the menaeus-construction in the wrong way but on page 133 the right construction is used. Is history repeating consequently?? BTW, the French book is very nice with many constructions and mathematics to lay out an Astrolabe, not only the most common type but also the Roias, the La Hire, the Linear type and so on. Best wishes, Fer. -- Fer J. de Vries [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.iaehv.nl/users/ferdv/ lat. 51:30 N long. 5:30 E
