Halakhah sur Daniel 8:9

There is no disagreement among astronomers that there are two great circles (the celestial equator and the ecliptic).¹⁰ In the geocentric system of Ibn Ezra there are seven spheres that encompass the earth, each containing a planet; an eighth sphere, the “zodiacal sphere,” containing the zodiac and the fixed stars; and a ninth sphere, the “diurnal sphere,” which rotates all of the lower spheres from east to west in 24 hours. The ecliptic is a path through the zodiac and it is the projection of the sun’s path on the zodiacal sphere. The celestial equator is the projection of the earth’s equator on the diurnal sphere and lies midway between the celestial poles. These are the outer circles, of which one is concentric with the earth.¹¹ The diurnal sphere has as its center the center of the earth. The ecliptic is the projection of the sun’s path upon the zodiacal sphere, and, although the zodiacal sphere is concentric with the earth, however the sun’s sphere is eccentric with its center some distance from the earth’s center. (It seems to me that there is a scribe’s error here, and the text should read “the center of the earth is the center for each,” referring to both the zodiacal sphere and the diurnal sphere.) They intersect at two points (the equinoctial points), and from there they diverge, one (the ecliptic) bending south and also north approximately two fifths of one sixth of the sphere.¹² 2⁄5 ׳ 1⁄6 ׳ 360÷ = 24÷. This angle, called the “obliquity of the ecliptic,” is defined as the angle between the plane of the ecliptic and the plane of the equator. The modern value for the obliquity of the ecliptic is approximately 23÷26ʹ.