The discovery of a gradual acceleration in the moon's mean motion by
Edmond Halley in the last decade of the seventeenth century led to a
revival of interest in reports of astronomical observations from
antiquity. These observations provided the only means to study the
moon's 'secular acceleration', as this newly-discovered acceleration
became known. This book contains the first detailed study of the use of
ancient and medieval astronomical observations in order to investigate
the moon's secular acceleration from its discovery by Halley to the
establishment of the magnitude of the acceleration by Richard Dunthorne,
Tobias Mayer and Jérôme Lalande in the 1740s and 1750s. Making extensive
use of previously unstudied manuscripts, this work shows how different
astronomers used the same small body of preserved ancient observations
in different ways in their work on the secular acceleration. In
addition, this work looks at the wider context of the study of the
moon's secular acceleration, including its use in debates of biblical
chronology, whether the heavens were made up of æther, and the use of
astronomy in determining geographical longitude. It also discusses wider
issues of the perceptions and knowledge of ancient and medieval
astronomy in the early-modern period. This book will be of interest to
historians of astronomy, astronomers and historians of the ancient
world.