Even in the position he assumed for his basic star, the Spica, which he used as a landmark, was erroneous by about forty minutes arc, more than the width of the moon. As a result of all this, Canon Koppernigk’s life-work seemed to be, for all useful purposes, wasted. From the seafarers’ and stargazers’ point of view, the Copernican planetary tables were only a slight improvement on the earlier Alphonsine tables, and were soon abandoned. And insofar as the theory of the universe is concerned, the Copernican system, bristling with inconsistencies, anomalies, and arbitrary constructions, was
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