Edmund Neville Nevill - Lunar Theory

Lunar Theory

The context of Nevill's lunar work was given by the increasing recognition of the inaccuracy of Hansen's Tables. Simon Newcomb found fluctuations both irregular and long period, and researched early observations of Moon. In 1878 Newcomb reviewed all observations and found that Hansen's fit back to 1750 worked because all earlier results were ignored. Finding if terms had been omitted from Hansen's theory was a major research issue at the time. Neison/Nevill, in a paper published in the RAS March 1877, confirmed a Jupiter term discovered by Simon Newcomb in 1876 - Neison's coefficient is accurate but an associated long period term coefficient is off by factor of 10. In 1877 Nevill produces a memoir developing analytical theory with an eye to less labour involved in producing tables. Memoir 'showed Nevill to possess considerable powers of Mathematical manipulation'. Later: Ernest W. Brown derived a new theory from first principles - much of Neison's later work in Durban observing Moon positions and comparing with theory is left high and dry and not published due to financial constraints.