Regiomontanus Establishes Observatory in Nuremberg

1470

The German mathematician and astronomer Johannes Muller, known across Europe as Regiomontanus, set up a printing press and astronomical observatory in Nuremberg with the patronage of the city's wealthy merchants. He published planetary ephemerides, mathematical treatises, and precise calendrical calculations that later directly informed Columbus's celestial navigation and eventually the Gregorian calendar reform. European astronomy was finally becoming a practical, observational science rather than merely a theoretical one.