Some cuneiform and classical Greek and Latin texts mention an astronomer with this name, but it is not clear if they all refer to the same individual: The following information is an excerpt of the overview of a century of scholarship in the sources referenced below.
Already Franz Xaver Kugler proposed that the word can be interpreted here as "table"; in another context it seems to mean something like "tool", but in yet another it refers to a blue enamel paste.
Schnabel also asserted that Kidinnu discovered precession when distinguishing between sidereal and tropical years; Neugebauer contested this and current scholarship considers this conclusion to be unfounded.
Classical sources like Strabo mention different "schools" and "doctrines" followed in different places (Babylon, Borsippa, Sippar, Uruk).
This is in the Seleucid era, but it is plausible that the traditional Chaldean astronomical systems had been developed before the Hellenistic period.