Nicolaus Copernicus "Almagest" circa 150 CE; the Earth was the stationary center of the universe. Stars were embedded in a large outer sphere which rotated rapidly, approximately daily, while each of the planets, the Sun, and the Moon were embedded in their own, smaller spheres. Ptolemy's system employed devices, including epicycles, deferents and equants, to account for observations that the paths of these bodies differed from simple, circular orbits centered on the Earth. Copernicus' major work on his heliocentric theory was "Dē revolutionibus orbium coelestium" ("On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres"), published in the year of his death, 1543. He had
Newcomb's Tables of the Sun adopted by the General Assembly of the IAU at the 1976 and 1979 meetings." The new fundamental ephemeris was prepared by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and named DE200/LE200. It uses numerical integration. Newcomb's Tables of the Sun Newcomb's "Tables of the Sun" is the short title and running head of a work by the American astronomer and mathematician Simon Newcomb entitled "Tables of the Motion of the Earth on its Axis and Around the Sun" on pages 1–169 of "Tables of the Four Inner Planets" (1895), volume VI of the serial publication "Astronomical Papers Prepared for the Use of the