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How did Erasmus Reinhold use Copernican methods in the Prutenic Tables?

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Nicolaus Copernicus Portrait of Nicolaus Copernicus, 1580, from the Town Hall in Toruń, Poland; in the collection of Muzeum Okręgowe w Toruniu (Regional Museum in Toruń). In his book *De revolutionibus*, he proposed that the Sun was the center of the solar system and that the planets circle the Sun.

In 1551, the German astronomer Erasmus Reinhold published the Tabulae prutenicae (Prutenic Tables), which were computed using the planetary theory developed by Nicolaus Copernicus.12

Although Reinhold was known for writing a popular textbook on Ptolemaic astronomy, he utilized the mathematical techniques and methods found in Copernicus’s De revolutionibus orbium coelestium libri VI to calculate these new tables. By applying Copernican methods, Reinhold produced tables that were more accurate and up-to-date than their 13th-century predecessors. These tables became an indispensable resource for both astronomers and astrologers, effectively helping to boost the reputation of Copernican astronomy despite the widespread agnosticism regarding the theory's central cosmological hypothesis of a moving Earth.12