Thomas Street

Who was Thomas Street?

Thomas Street was an English astronomer. In 1661, he published Astronomia Carolina, a new theorie of Coelestial Motions. An Appendix to Astronomia Carolina followed in 1664.

Astronomia Carolina was widely read, and used by students who later became very notable in their own right, e.g. by Isaac Newton and by John Flamsteed. Streete's tables in Astronomia Carolina attained some reputation for accuracy: for example, Flamsteed once referred to them as "the exactest tables in being, the Caroline", and Astronomia Carolina itself appeared in second and third editions as late as 1710 and 1716.

1674 saw the appearance of Street's Description and Use of the Planetary Systeme together with Easie Tables, as well as in the same year Tables of Projection, for artillery, accompanying a work on gunnery by Robert Anderson.

A follower of Johannes Kepler, Street argued, like Kepler, that Earth's rate of daily rotation is not uniform. He argued that the rotation increased as it approached the Sun.

Thomas Streete the astronomer has sometimes been confused with another Thomas Street, a judge, who lived from 1626 to 1696.