Canon der Finsternisse, Theodor von Oppolzer 1887

Gallery 3 of 4, 478 to 1309

These extracts are from the preface to the 1962 Dover reprint of the Canon der Finsternisse. Besides its significance to eclipse specialists, the Canon der Finsternisse is noteworthy as perhaps the most extensive set of manual calculations done up to its time of publication in 1887.


Four years after the 1962 Dover edition, a comparable successor to the Canon der Finsternisse finally appeared with the publication of the Canon of Solar Eclipses by Jean Meeus, Carl Grosjean, and Willy Vanderleen, all from Belgium. This volume includes far more accurate eclipse paths thanks to the use of an IBM 1620 data processing system.


The maps in the 1966 Canon of Solar Eclipses bear a striking resemblance to Oppolzer’s maps but cure the northern chauvinism of the Canon der Finsternisse by including matching sets of maps for both northern and southern hemispheres. You can find further description and examples of these maps in the 1961-1970 map gallery.