Anybody doing Astronomical Algorithms?

[Bill Gill]

I am starting off simple. I just want to calculate the Longitude
of the Sun for a given time and date. I am using the algorithm
in Astronomical Algorithms by Jean Meeus, Chapter 25. I am
concentrating on the Geometric Longitude only, not the other factors.
I am having a problem getting the right answer to the example
Meeus gives in Example 25a. I have written it up in Visual
Basic and have stepped through the process using the date he
gives. Everything works just fine up to a point. I get the
time T , the L0 , the M, and the C all in agreement. Then
I calculate Theta = L0 + C. I get a completely different answer.
Meeus says 199.90988 degrees. I get about -200320 degrees. So
I figured that I needed to reduce it to 360 degrees, but when I
do that I get around 160 degrees.

Can anyone help me?

Thanks a lot
Bill Gill

[Bill Gill]

I just spotted one problem. The answer I got above, about -160 degrees
is 360 degrees out. If I add 360 degrees the answer comes out
in full agreement with Meeus. I just can't figure where the
other 360 degrees comes from.

Bill

[Ben]

On Friday, August 23, 2013 2:02:00 PM UTC-4, Bill Gill wrote:
> On 8/23/2013 11:55 AM, Bill Gill wrote:
>
> > I am starting off simple. I just want to calculate the Longitude
>
> > of the Sun for a given time and date. I am using the algorithm
>
> > in Astronomical Algorithms by Jean Meeus, Chapter 25. I am
>
> > concentrating on the Geometric Longitude only, not the other factors.
>
> > I am having a problem getting the right answer to the example

e:>

> > Meeus gives in Example 25a. I have written it up in Visual
>
> > Basic and have stepped through the process using the date he
>
> > gives. Everything works just fine up to a point. I get the
>
> > time T , the L0 , the M, and the C all in agreement. Then
>
> > I calculate Theta = L0 + C. I get a completely different answer.
>
> > Meeus says 199.90988 degrees. I get about -200320 degrees. So
>
> > I figured that I needed to reduce it to 360 degrees, but when I
>
> > do that I get around 160 degrees.
>
> >
>
> > Can anyone help me?
>
> >
>
> > Thanks a lot
>
> > Bill Gill
>
> I just spotted one problem. The answer I got above, about -160 degrees
>
> is 360 degrees out. If I add 360 degrees the answer comes out
>
> in full agreement with Meeus. I just can't figure where the
>
> other 360 degrees comes from.
>
>
>
> Bill

Write a conditional formula like:

If([result]<360, [result]+360,[result])

And you won't need those extra brackets around you result.

[Ben]

The extra 360° addition is simply a device for turning a negative longitude
into a positive. The farther you go into Astronomical_Algorithms you will find that you have to employ this correction frequently.

[Bill Gill]

On 8/23/2013 1:57 PM, Ben wrote:
> The extra 360� addition is simply a device for turning a negative longitude
> into a positive. The farther you go into Astronomical_Algorithms you will find that you have to employ this correction frequently.
>

I put that in, but actually I found that just adding the
360 didn't quite work, so what I did was to put in

L = L + 360
L = L Mod 360

That got it into the right right quadrant and then reset
it to be less than 360.

The problem then was that I found out that it didn't give me
a good enough answer. What I am trying to do is to find the
time for a specific longitude. This is for a Chinese calendar
converter I am trying to write. The Chinese months all start
on a new moon. The thing is that which new moon depends on
the solar term they come in. And that means I need the time
for each solar term, which come in 15 degree increments. And
it means that you have to be very precise. If you are talking
about a term that starts close to midnight and you are off
just a couple of minutes then you can wind up having the
wrong month.

I am using the output of the Solar position algorithm in a loop
that calculates the difference between the longitude of a
test time and the desired longitude, then setting a correction
factor to change the time until I get the correct angle, then
use that time. That seems to be working. But the time seems
to be coming out just a few minutes wrong. Comparing that time
to the time from Meeus' Solstice and Equinox algorithm, which
compares closely to published dates and times, I am consistently
off by 2 to 4 minutes. I am still working on that problem.
So far I haven't been able to improve the time by more than
a few seconds.

Thanks for the help.

Bill

[Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway]

"Bill Gill" wrote in message news:kv882i$r6a$1...@dont-email.me...

=========================================================
You don’t need any help.
Meeus says 200 degrees, 360 degrees is a full circle, 360 - 160 = 200.
Step back and think what -200320 degrees actually means.

-- Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway

[oriel36]

On Friday, August 23, 2013 5:55:10 PM UTC+1, Bill Gill wrote:
> I am starting off simple. I just want to calculate the Longitude
>
> of the Sun for a given time and date. I am using the algorithm
>
> in Astronomical Algorithms by Jean Meeus, Chapter 25. I am
>
> concentrating on the Geometric Longitude only, not the other factors.

Longitude cannot be anything other than geometric and it is specific to the Earth's rotational characteristics.The longitude of the Sun has no meaning as the Earth's Lat/Long system is based on the average time it takes the Sun to return to noon within as 1461 day system formatted in a 365/365/365/366 day framework.If you are an astronomer you will know immediately that there is always going to be a mismatch between the rotation of the planet and the Sun's position with each cycle by virtue that once you include the time/date system you are automatically reducing the observations to an assertion of constant rotation and bypassing the natural variations in orbital motion which produces the inequality.

They came across this issue a long time ago -

http://books.google.ie/books?id=MfU3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA27&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false

Your post reminds me of these guys who are nitpicking over tiny fractions of a second by assuming that stellar circumpolar motion equates directly with terrestrial longitudes and rotation while being a full rotation out each orbital cycle.

There are about a dozen different inputs you are ignoring notwithstanding that even guys like Huygens got it wrong in converting the Sun's motion into terrestrial longitudes via the EoT -

" Here take notice, that the Sun or the Earth passes through the 12 constellations, or makes an entire revolution in the Ecliptic in 365 days, 5 hours 49 min. or there about, and that those days, reckon'd from noon to noon,
are of different lenghts; as is known to all that are vers'd in Astronomy.Now between the longest and the shortest of those days, a day may be taken of such a length, as 365 such days, 5. hours &c. (the same numbers as before) make up, or are equal to that revolution: And this is call'd the Equal or Mean day, according to which the Watches are to be set; and therefore the Hour or Minute shew'd by the Watches, though they be perfectly just and equal, must needs differ almost continually from those that are showed by the Sun, or are reckon'd according to its Motion." Huygens

I would give you a hint but from experience I haven't come across anyone with the type of talent to spot the weakness in Huygen's argument although it is quite good.

Remember now,ephemerides are a convenience where you project the calendar system into space as a rotating celestial sphere whereas longitudes refer only to the rotational characteristics of the Earth,one helluva difference.

[Bill Gill]

On 8/23/2013 6:11 PM, oriel36 wrote:

>
> Longitude cannot be anything other than geometric and it is specific to the Earth's rotational characteristics.The longitude of the Sun has no meaning as the Earth's Lat/Long system is based on the average time it takes the Sun to return to noon within as 1461 day system formatted in a 365/365/365/366 day framework.If you are an astronomer you will know immediately that there is always going to be a mismatch between the rotation of the planet and the Sun's position with each cycle by virtue that once you include the time/date system you are automatically reducing the observations to an assertion of constant rotation and bypassing the natural variations in orbital motion which produces the inequality.
>
> They came across this issue a long time ago -
>
> http://books.google.ie/books?id=MfU3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA27&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
>
> Your post reminds me of these guys who are nitpicking over tiny fractions of a second by assuming that stellar circumpolar motion equates directly with terrestrial longitudes and rotation while being a full rotation out each orbital cycle.
>
> There are about a dozen different inputs you are ignoring notwithstanding that even guys like Huygens got it wrong in converting the Sun's motion into terrestrial longitudes via the EoT -
>
> " Here take notice, that the Sun or the Earth passes through the 12 constellations, or makes an entire revolution in the Ecliptic in 365 days, 5 hours 49 min. or there about, and that those days, reckon'd from noon to noon,
> are of different lenghts; as is known to all that are vers'd in Astronomy.Now between the longest and the shortest of those days, a day may be taken of such a length, as 365 such days, 5. hours &c. (the same numbers as before) make up, or are equal to that revolution: And this is call'd the Equal or Mean day, according to which the Watches are to be set; and therefore the Hour or Minute shew'd by the Watches, though they be perfectly just and equal, must needs differ almost continually from those that are showed by the Sun, or are reckon'd according to its Motion." Huygens
>
> I would give you a hint but from experience I haven't come across anyone with the type of talent to spot the weakness in Huygen's argument although it is quite good.
>
> Remember now,ephemerides are a convenience where you project the calendar system into space as a rotating celestial sphere whereas longitudes refer only to the rotational characteristics of the Earth,one helluva difference.
>
>
>

Thanks for taking the time to respond, but you may be slightly
misunderstanding what I am trying to do. I am using the algorithms
in Jean Meeus' book "Astronomical Algorithms" to try to determine
various things that I need to know in order to develop conversion
routines between the Gregorian calendar and various calendars based
on different ideas. One of the major differences between the Gregorian
calendar and others is that the Gregorian Calendar (GC) is based on a
Solar year, with various corrections to make it match the actual year.
Most of the other calendars are at least partially based on the Lunar
year and therefore I need to be able to calculate the phases of the
moon, the times of the Solstices and Equinoxes, and, for the Chinese
Calendar, the 24 Solar Terms, which are evenly space at 15 degree
intervals of the geocentric Solar Longitude. That is the angle
between the reference meridian (Greenwich, England for UT) and the
position of the Sun at that time. I have learned that much in my
wanderings through Meeus. In his book Meeus provides a great many
algorithms to calculate many different types of astronomical
phenomena. This is the calculation I am attempting.

And to go on beyond that, in my program I am coming up with some
items that don't seem to work the way Meeus describes them. This
is one of those cases. I now have that problem worked out, but I
still have some other problems.

The next problem was that the short form algorithm I was trying
when I developed the problem I originally posted about didn't give
good enough results. The Chinese calendar is based, to a large
extent on the 24 Solar Terms I mentioned above. If the program
is working on a term that is very close to midnight a few minutes
error in either direction may cause a months error in the date.
So I needed something better. That pushed me to use the long
form in Chapter 32 of the book. This involved a large number
of terms which I have incorporated and very carefully proofed.
Now I find that there is still an error of several minutes
in the output of my program. And when I tried checking for
a date in 1980 there was an error of several hours. I don't much
think Meeus got it wrong in his book, so there must be an error
in my code, but I can't find anything wrong. Maybe somebody here
will be able to at least suggest somewhere to start looking.

Thanks for the help.

Bill Gill

[Ben]

Get outa here Oriole. We're talking Astronomy.

[oriel36]

On Saturday, August 24, 2013 12:39:30 AM UTC+1, Ben wrote:
> Get outa here Oriole. We're talking Astronomy.

If you could match up the 24 hour AM/PM system with the Lat/Long system as genuine astronomers once did I would consider it a minor miracle but unfortunately you wish to remain a no-knowing homocentric empiricist who does not know the limitations of the equatorial coordinate system and the stupid notion of projecting the Earth's rotational characteristics into space as celestial sphere geometry.

Stick with your magnification exercise where you can't do any harm.

[Ben]

Get outa here, Oriole. We're talking Astronomy.

[oriel36]

You are talking rubbish as usual.

The Equation of Time is a discontinuous set of corrections reducing the length of time from one noon cycle to the next into a 24 hour average so that one set covering the 1461 natural noon cycles covering 4 orbits/4 years differs from the next 4 year cycle.

http://www.sunlit-design.com/infosearch/equationoftime.php

The Equation of Time is based on the fact that all planets have two surface rotations to the central Sun and the orbital component cannot be squeezed into terrestrial longitudes.It is possible to actually see a planet turn into two ways so that the daily component has a maximum equatorial speed diminishing to zero at the polar latitudes while the orbital component turns all surface latitudes at the same speed but that speed varies with the orbital speed of the Earth.This is why inclination has nothing whatsoever to do with the natural variations in natural noon as the length of the natural noon cycles are the same in Sydney,Australia as they are in London,England.

If you can't keep up then just say so ,as for Meuss,he is just another mathematician working off the calendar system and chanting voodoo art cause and effect.

[Ben]

If the periods start on a New Moon than you will have to know the precise instant of the Full Moon. This can be found with the terms Meeus gives in the Moon chapters.
You ought to do the Moon positions to make more precise determinations because this may be where your discrepancies are cropping up.

[Ben]

I meant the precise instant of the *New Moon*.

[oriel36]

Ah,you are a homocentrist who knows all too well you are out of your depth and following the same calendar based clockwork solar system that got Sir Isaac into so much trouble along with his voodoo chanting followers,including Meeus -

http://www.sunlit-design.com/infosearch/meeus.php?indexref=1

If the software guys want to be useful and productive,they are going to have to leave the rotating celestial sphere Universe behind and start to work with 21st century observations so humanity can escape this cruel era .

[oriel36]

You meant the precise position of the new moon using the average 24 day within the 365/366 day system,after all,the moon's position covers Feb 29th of a leap year using this software.

You dummies are supposed to see the cracks open up just the way that poor guy did in the mid 19th century -

http://books.google.ie/books?id=MfU3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA27&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false

It is supposed to disprove the core principle on which your build your clockwork solar system and the scam of 'predictive modeling' on which that ideology was based.

I wish you could understand the mismatch between predictive astronomy and interpretative astronomy,the main objection of the Pope in the era of the Galileo affair,I really do -

"Here lurked the danger of serious misunderstanding. Maffeo Barberini, while he was a Cardinal, had counselled Galileo to treat Copernicanism as a hypothesis, not as a confirmed truth. But ‘hypothesis’ meant two very different things. On the one hand, astronomers were assumed to deal only with hypotheses, i.e. accounts of the observed motions of the stars and planets that were not claimed to be true. Astronomical theories were mere instruments for calculation and prediction, a view that is often called ‘instrumentalism’. On the other hand, a hypothesis could also be understood as a theory that was not yet proved but was open to eventual confirmation. This was a ‘realist’ position. Galileo thought that Copernicanism was true, and presented it as a hypothesis, i.e. as a provisional idea that was potentially physically true, and he discussed the pros and cons, leaving the issue undecided. This did not correspond to the instrumentalist view of Copernicanism that was held by Maffeo Barberini and others. They thought that Copernicus’ system was a purely instrumental device, and Maffeo Barberini was convinced that it could never be proved. This ambiguity pervaded the whole Galileo Affair."

http://www.unav.es/cryf/english/newlightistanbul.html

No wonder you lost souls are hostile to the true resolution of retrogrades !.

[Ben]

Get outa here, Gerald.

[Ben]

On Friday, August 23, 2013 8:48:31 PM UTC-4, oriel36 wrote:

Outa here, Gerald.

[Bill Gill]

The problem isn't so much that they start on the day of the new moon
(not the instant), but that they start on the day of the new moon on
or after the nth Solar Term. And there are other rules. The Chinese
calendar isn't as simple as the Gregorian calendar. I am
working on the rules one at a time, right now it is getting the
correct time for the Solar Terms.

I found one of my problems and hopefully will get that one taken care
of tomorrow. I am finding the correct time of the term by using
a test time and checking the Longitude for that, then resetting the
test time to be closer to the angle I am looking for. The problem
of course is finding the offset to use when the angle is in a
different quadrant. I will get it figure out.

There is still an error of several minutes from the equinoxes and
solstices. That one is what is bothering me right now.

I have some moon time algorithms that I have been using to find
the moon quarters to show on the calendar. I will have to revisit
them for when I start on the next step on the Chinese dates. I
suspect that the ones I have aren't quite the ones I really
need. I downloaded them mostly whole from the internet, then
had to interpret them into Visual Basic to use them. I think
they leave something to be desired. When I get better ones I may
have to go back and make some more changes to the basic calendar.

Having Meeus' book is a big help in all of this. It is a lot better
than trying to figure out what some code I downloaded off of the
internet, with no documentation, is doing.

Bill Gill

[oriel36]

On Saturday, August 24, 2013 2:47:35 AM UTC+1, Bill Gill wrote:

> The problem isn't so much that they start on the day of the new moon
>
> (not the instant), but that they start on the day of the new moon on
>
> or after the nth Solar Term. And there are other rules. The Chinese
>
> calendar isn't as simple as the Gregorian calendar.

Simple you say !,so let us hear how simple the framework is for equating days/years with rotations/orbital cycles so that relative motions of celestial objects to each other get translated into actual motions via the calendar system.

Tell me how you figure the motions and positions of the moon to the Earth using a system which takes into account that a 1/4 rotation's worth of orbital motion is omitted each non leap year and added at the end of the 4th cycle as a full day/rotation.

I wish you people would stop treating the Earth within a clockwork rotating celestial sphere where you have imposed an illegal longitude system on the Universe as a celestial sphere.It is at times convenient and highly disruptive for interpretative astronomy and the sad fact is,that nobody wants to know.

[Quadibloc]

On Friday, August 23, 2013 6:48:31 PM UTC-6, oriel36 wrote:

> You dummies are supposed to see the cracks open up just the way that poor guy > did in the mid 19th century -

> http://books.google.ie/books?id=MfU3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA27&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false

The poor guy in the 19th Century just encountered someone who shares your view of Solar System mechanics; unlike us, he couldn't quite explain why the fellow was wrong.

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

Here is the proof that you are wrong and Newton was right:

http://books.google.ca/books?id=rgdLxZdr7WEC

Neptune still exists!

John Savard

[Ben]

>
> The next problem was that the short form algorithm I was trying
>
> when I developed the problem I originally posted about didn't give
>
> good enough results. The Chinese calendar is based, to a large
>
> extent on the 24 Solar Terms I mentioned above. If the program
>
> is working on a term that is very close to midnight a few minutes
>
> error in either direction may cause a months error in the date.
>
> So I needed something better. That pushed me to use the long
>
> form in Chapter 32 of the book. This involved a large number
>
> of terms which I have incorporated and very carefully proofed.
>
> Now I find that there is still an error of several minutes
>
> in the output of my program. And when I tried checking for
>
> a date in 1980 there was an error of several hours. I don't much
>
> think Meeus got it wrong in his book, so there must be an error
>
> in my code, but I can't find anything wrong. Maybe somebody here
>
> will be able to at least suggest somewhere to start looking.

Bill,
Are you using VBA in Excel, Access or something else? Also if you use the long form in Ch.32 and are off several hours then you may not have converted *radians* to *degrees* corectly.

I used Excel to set up my ephemeris tables and it in very good agreement with the JPL programs. (De 405, De 406)

[Bill Gill]

I am using VisualBasic.net 2008. I think that I have the
conversion from radians to degrees and back all taken care of.
I just got my loop working so that I get consistent results
for all dates, but it is still several minutes off. So there
is something wrong with what I am doing. There seems to be
a slight time effect. The offset seems to drift with time.
That suggests that I am doing something wrong with the time

I am using the high accuracy calculation from Chapter 32 - Positions
of the Planets. I have been through all of the terms from Appendix
II several times looking for errors and haven't found any the
last couple of times. I am not using any of the corrections
that are listed, but from what I read in there I don't think I
should be needing them. I am not using the B section of the
table, because I am only interested in the longitude and I
don't see that they are needed for that. Unless of course
I need to do the corrections in equation 32.3. I did try
that and didn't come up with anything that helped. If any
thing I seem to recall they threw me off even more.

Thanks for the suggestion I will go back through the
routine one more time.

Bill Gill

[Quadibloc]

On Friday, August 23, 2013 6:27:58 PM UTC-6, oriel36 wrote:

> The Equation of Time is a discontinuous set of corrections

WRONG. The correction is a continuous function, and so the correction between the sundial and the mechanical clock, while shown in tables perhaps once each day actually continuously changes every second.

John Savard

[Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway]

"Quadibloc" wrote in message
news:6e30b012-2890-403e...@googlegroups.com...

====================================================
Further proof that autistic Kelleher doesn't know the meaning of the words
he strings together in an incoherent babble, as if any further proof were
needed.

[Quadibloc]

On Saturday, August 24, 2013 2:25:48 AM UTC-6, oriel36 wrote:

> Simple you say !,so let us hear how simple the framework is for equating
> days/years with rotations/orbital cycles so that relative motions of
> celestial objects to each other get translated into actual motions via the
> calendar system.

No, that's not his job, that's yours, because it's your theory the Earth rotates once every 24 hours.

At best, it rotates relative to the Sun with an _average_ period of 24 hours (thanks to that pesky Equation of Time). This irregularity, compared with a constant period of 23 hours and 56 minutes for stellar circumpolar motion shows that your rotation is a compound motion, while the one we use is a simple motion.

The sidereal day resolves the Equation of Time the same way Copernicus resolved retrogrades.

> Tell me how you figure the motions and positions of the moon to the Earth
> using a system which takes into account that a 1/4 rotation's worth of
> orbital motion is omitted each non leap year and added at the end of the 4th
> cycle as a full day/rotation.

The orbital periods of the Moon and the Earth are not commensurable, nor is the length of the day commensurable with either of them. So what?

> I wish you people would stop treating the Earth within a clockwork rotating
> celestial sphere where you have imposed an illegal longitude system on the
> Universe as a celestial sphere.It is at times convenient and highly
> disruptive for interpretative astronomy and the sad fact is,that nobody wants > to know.

Well, until I Googled it, I didn't even know what "interpretive astronomy" was supposed to be. And, yes, nobody cares about that today. Instead, most of astronomy today is *astrophysics*, as we figure out how the stars shine and so on. We didn't get there by contemplating how pretty the night sky is.

John Savard

[palsing]

On Friday, August 23, 2013 4:11:10 PM UTC-7, oriel36 wrote:

> " Here take notice, that the Sun or the Earth passes through the 12 constellations..."

> ... I would give you a hint but from experience I haven't come across anyone with the type of talent to spot the weakness in Huygen's argument although it is quite good.

Well, he is definitely wrong about the 12 constellations, the Sun is in Ophiuchus for 19 days every year...

Since I'm already here, I may as well remind you that you have no talent whatsoever concerning astronomy, amateur or otherwise, to say nothing about any of the other sciences. Completely unteachable.

[oriel36]

On Sunday, August 25, 2013 4:34:16 AM UTC+1, palsing wrote:
> On Friday, August 23, 2013 4:11:10 PM UTC-7, oriel36 wrote:
>
>
>
> > " Here take notice, that the Sun or the Earth passes through the 12 constellations..."
>
>
>
> > ... I would give you a hint but from experience I haven't come across anyone with the type of talent to spot the weakness in Huygen's argument although it is quite good.
>
>
>
> Well, he is definitely wrong about the 12 constellations, the Sun is in Ophiuchus for 19 days every year...
>

All timekeeping is based on a simple observation that doesn't involve the motion of the Sun through the constellations,it involves the appearance of a single star from behind the glare of the Sun,in this case,Sirius does not appear after 365 consecutive days but takes an extra day to appear after the 4th cycle.This fact that the Earth turns 1461 times for the 4 times it orbits the Sun is the central fact on which the Equation of Time is based.

The average 24 hour day within this 365/366 day format allows observers to create a homocentric observation that a star will return to any reference point in 23 hours 56 minutes 04 seconds of a 24 hour day within the 365/366 day calendar framework.This is what gives these software guys their electronic rotating celestial sphere Universe and the relative positions of the moon,Sun and planets to each other and allows for the prediction of astronomical events as dates/times within the calendar but that is as far as it goes.There is nothing remotely difficult about any of this and especially as it sets off the limitations of a calendar based prediction system from the timekeeping system from which it emerged,specifically the 24 hour AM/PM system and the Lat/Long system where days/years come very close to rotations/orbital circuits.

It is fine talking about the future of astronomy but not in an era where people imagine a spinning moon or can't match all the effects within a 24 hour day with one rotation of the Earth and keep them in step.There is so much good people can do when they realize the difference between what is good enough and what is too much.

[Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway]

"oriel36" wrote in message
news:fc029bc5-cd48-4241...@googlegroups.com...

On Sunday, August 25, 2013 4:34:16 AM UTC+1, palsing wrote:
> On Friday, August 23, 2013 4:11:10 PM UTC-7, oriel36 wrote:
>
>
>
> > " Here take notice, that the Sun or the Earth passes through the 12
> > constellations..."
>
>
>
> > ... I would give you a hint but from experience I haven't come across
> > anyone with the type of talent to spot the weakness in Huygen's argument
> > although it is quite good.
>
>
>
> Well, he is definitely wrong about the 12 constellations, the Sun is in
> Ophiuchus for 19 days every year...
>


All timekeeping is based on a simple observation that doesn't involve the
motion of the Sun through the constellations

=====================================================
Autistic Kelleher has scrapped the year now.

[oriel36]

The reference for timekeeping is the apparent horizontal motion of Sirius as the Earth's orbital motion puts it behind the Sun for a period -

http://danmary.org/tiki/show_image.php?id=30

The Egyptians observed that after four 365 day cycles Sirius would not appear hence we have the natural days remaining fixed to the orbital points of the solstices and equinoxes which in turns translates into 1461 rotations for 4 orbital circuits or 365 1/4 rotations for one circuit.

"on account of the precession of the rising of Sirius by one day in the course of 4 years, and other festivals celebrated in the summer, in this country, shall not be celebrated in winter, as has occasionally occurred in past times, therefore it shall be, that the year of 360 days and the 5 days added to their end, so one day after every 4 years added to the 5 epagomenae before the New
Year, whereby all men shall learn, that what was a little defective in the order as regards the seasons and the year, as also the opinions which are contained in the rules of the learned on the heavenly orbits, are now corrected and improved" Canopus decree, 238 BC

People don't talk like that anymore, the pride in the statement is familiar and indeed there should be people passing through this forum who would also take pride in being able to see the logic in the statement and the fact that an orbital event like the flooding of the Nile has an external reference in the appearance of Sirius.

People are not naturally monsters,they only develop a hard shell of pretense that prevents information from penetrating and registering why it is important as well as enjoyable,as yet that hasn't happened.

[Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway]

"oriel36" wrote in message
news:ee2bc9ca-201c-4d1e...@googlegroups.com...

On Sunday, August 25, 2013 8:46:09 AM UTC+1, Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of
Medway wrote:
> "oriel36" wrote in message
>
> news:fc029bc5-cd48-4241...@googlegroups.com...
>
>
>
> On Sunday, August 25, 2013 4:34:16 AM UTC+1, palsing wrote:
>
> > On Friday, August 23, 2013 4:11:10 PM UTC-7, oriel36 wrote:
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> > > " Here take notice, that the Sun or the Earth passes through the 12
>
> > > constellations..."
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> > > ... I would give you a hint but from experience I haven't come across
>
> > > anyone with the type of talent to spot the weakness in Huygen's
> > > argument
>
> > > although it is quite good.
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> > Well, he is definitely wrong about the 12 constellations, the Sun is in
>
> > Ophiuchus for 19 days every year...
>
> >
>
>
>
>
>
> All timekeeping is based on a simple observation that doesn't involve the
>
> motion of the Sun through the constellations
>
> =====================================================
>
> Autistic Kelleher has scrapped the year now.
>
>
>
> -- Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway

The reference for timekeeping

======================================
Autistic Kelleher hallucinates counting years isn't keeping time. This is
because his mental age remains 0.

[oriel36]

The line of sight observation that puts Sirius behind the Sun as a marker for the orbital motion of the Earth using the number of rotations relies on the horizon motion of Sirius and not stellar circumpolar motion -

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/FourPlanetSunset_hao_annotated.JPG

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/Ecliptic_plane_side_view.gif

It means turning the horizon into an almost vertical 'wall' and negating any stellar circumpolar aspect preferred by those viewers who operate on the very limited idea of planets and stars rising and setting each day.The problem was that the equatorial coordinate system overshadowed the works of the great astronomers and their concentration of what is out there rather that the above/below of late 17th century homocentricity and the software built around it.

[Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway]

"oriel36" wrote in message
news:4372a332-c7cf-4f44...@googlegroups.com...

The line of sight observation that puts Sirius behind the Sun as a marker
for the orbital motion of the Earth using the number of rotations relies on
the horizon motion of Sirius

====================================================
Which way is the horizon moving, autistic Kelleher?

[oriel36]

Typo.

The apparent motion of Sirius runs horizontal to the observer concentrating on the orbital motion of the Earth.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/FourPlanetSunset_hao_annotated.JPG

You couldn't do it but any student can enjoy the perspective with ease and they will love it once they see how the motions of the planets run along the same line -

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/Ecliptic_plane_side_view.gif

All that is stopping 21st century astronomy is a few magnification 'hobbiests' who have no regard for anything other than spotting stars and a bit of magnification.

Go back to sci.relativity and chant voodoo because you ain't doing too well here.

[Ben]

On Sunday, August 25, 2013 12:08:55 PM UTC-4, oriel36 wrote:
> On Sunday, August 25, 2013 4:55:33 PM UTC+1, Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway wrote:
>
> > "oriel36" wrote in message
>
> >
>
> > news:4372a332-c7cf-4f44...@googlegroups.com...
>
> >

Go back to alt.literalized.fiction, Gerald and get outa here.

[Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway]

"Ben" wrote in message
news:033411d7-77ed-4f0d...@googlegroups.com...

Go back to alt.literalized.fiction, Gerald and get outa here.

=============================================
Nah, he's funny.
Ya gotta love "horizontal to the observer concentrating on

the orbital motion of the Earth"

Nobody but Kelleher could describe the plane of Earth's orbit
as horizontal to the observer lying on his back in Scotland or
New Zealand at 12:00 am GMT.

[oriel36]

On Sunday, August 25, 2013 5:56:48 PM UTC+1, Ben wrote:
> On Sunday, August 25, 2013 12:08:55 PM UTC-4, oriel36 wrote:
>
> > On Sunday, August 25, 2013 4:55:33 PM UTC+1, Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway wrote:
>
> >
>
> > > "oriel36" wrote in message
>
> >
>
> > >
>
> >
>
> > > news:4372a332-c7cf-4f44...@googlegroups.com...
>
> >
>
> > >
>
> Go back to alt.literalized.fiction, Gerald and get outa here.
>

How sweet,the calendar based software systems have just be deconstructed as variants of the equatorial coordinate system and it takes real and genuine talent to know where that system came from and especially what its limitations are.

Maybe you are not good enough to work through the details of the original reference for timekeeping where the 24 hour AM/PM system works in tandem with the Lat/Long system but the problems you are generating are enormous and contrary to the spirit of astronomy and the purpose it serves in the wider world.

I look at these high school astronomy curriculum and the silly rotating celestial sphere cult with the equinox defined by the motion of the Sun instead of the motions and characteristics of the Earth and it is nothing short of an assault on human rights -

http://www.uni.edu/morgans/astro/course/Notes/section1/new2.html

None of you have a right to indoctrinate kids into nonsense and you are doing it with the same Ra/Dec framework that the vicious strain of empiricism uses for its 'predictive' agenda or the scientific method as it is known among its cult members.

The first reference which constitutes the connection between days/years and rotations/orbital circuits is this one -

http://www.uni.edu/morgans/astro/course/Notes/section1/new2.html

The 24 hour AM/PM system is founded on the 1461 natural noon cycles it takes to complete 4 orbital circuits and Sirius was delayed by a day in its appearance after four cycles of 365 days.

When you have the average 24 hour day within the steady progression of natural days covering Mar 1st of one year to Feb 29th four years later then and only then can you determine the average return of a star to any position in 23 hours 56 minutes,that determinations tells you nothing about the rotation of the Earth nor the latitudinal speeds held by the Lat/Long system.

If you can't understand the trajectory of timekeeping innovations then go join the moderated forums where you will be safe from anything creative,productive or challenging -

http://www.astronomyforum.net/forum.php

[oriel36]

Nothing too it .

http://www.astronomyforum.net/forum.php

Run the line of the Earth's orbital motion in a horizontal direction where the horizon appears near enough vertical so that an observer lying on their back looks into the celestial arena and gets a sense of the way the planets move around the Sun -

http://www.masil-astro-imaging.com/SWI/UV%20montage%20flat.jpg

From night to night,this is what the observer sees -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=MdFrE7hWj0A

Lot and lots of things to take into account such as ignoring the stars setting daily against the horizon and paying attention to the stars disappearing behind the Sun as Elnath does in the sequence or the emergence of Sirius -

http://danmary.org/tiki/show_image.php?id=30

I posted the wrong link in the other post to Ben so at least you are serving a useful purpose for a change.

[Ben]

Get outa here, Gerald.

[Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway]

"oriel36" wrote in message
news:37fb12d2-d47a-4c17...@googlegroups.com...

Run the line of the Earth's orbital motion in a horizontal direction

========================
Which direction is a horizontal direction at dawn, midday,
dusk and midnight in London, 52 degrees north on a planet
tilted 23.5 degrees to the ecliptic? Is it North, East, South or
West from "the observer concentrating on the orbital motion
of the Earth" ?

-- Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway

[palsing]

On Sunday, August 25, 2013 8:41:40 AM UTC-7, oriel36 wrote:

> The line of sight observation that puts Sirius behind the Sun as a marker for the orbital motion of the Earth using the number of rotations relies on the horizon motion of Sirius and not stellar circumpolar motion -

************

Under no circumstances is Sirius ever behind the Sun in a line-of-sight fashion. As a matter of fact, at their very closest distance from each other, July 1st in 2013, Sirius was almost exactly 40 degrees of declination due south of the Sun, or about 80 solar diameters away! Sure, for about 70 days a year Sirius can't be seen, but that is not because it is behind the Sun, it is simply because it is in the sky at the same time as the Sun, and is therefore not visible, just like virtually every other star that is in the sky at the same time as the Sun.

Also, Sirius (or any other star you wish to choose) does not have 'horizontal' motion, and like it or not, it is always the same distance from the south celestial pole, no matter where it is in your local sky, and therefore... it circles a pole, round and round we go... circumpolar, if you will, although the colloquial definition of 'circumpolar' is normally reserved for stars that are so close to one pole or the other that they never dip below the horizon, from your location.

What would it hurt for you to acquire a first-year Introduction to Astronomy book and do some reading? Do you think everything in there is bogus? You have a lot to learn... if that is even possible.

[oriel36]

You just don't have a feel for what is going on at the moment but your grandkids will love it and who knows ?,maybe one of two readers here are getting the point.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/FourPlanetSunset_hao_annotated.JPG

Do you see the line called 'ecliptic' ?.The background stars will run along the same line as you see in the animated graphic putting certain stars behind the Sun or the glare of the Sun if you are really picky.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=MdFrE7hWj0A


Do you see Elnath move in tandem with Jupiter along the same ecliptic line, well that is due to the orbital motion of the Earth,of course Jupiter will move incrementally away from Elnath during that May period but the point is that when stellar circumpolar motion is negated as an observation,observers get this huge panorama for the first time and get a sense of looking out into the celestial arena away from the central Sun.

Your question is based on daily rotational characteristics of dawn,twilight and so on and that misses the point entirely.The stars will actually appear to move as seen in the YouTube animated graphic and the line of its movement follows the orbital motion of the Earth and that is where the theorists like yourself and the hobbiests are lost in your rotating celestial sphere Universe.

Welcome to the 21st century.

[Martin Brown]

On 23/08/2013 19:02, Bill Gill wrote:
> On 8/23/2013 11:55 AM, Bill Gill wrote:
>> I am starting off simple. I just want to calculate the Longitude
>> of the Sun for a given time and date. I am using the algorithm
>> in Astronomical Algorithms by Jean Meeus, Chapter 25. I am
>> concentrating on the Geometric Longitude only, not the other factors.
>> I am having a problem getting the right answer to the example
>> Meeus gives in Example 25a. I have written it up in Visual
>> Basic and have stepped through the process using the date he
>> gives. Everything works just fine up to a point. I get the
>> time T , the L0 , the M, and the C all in agreement. Then
>> I calculate Theta = L0 + C. I get a completely different answer.
>> Meeus says 199.90988 degrees. I get about -200320 degrees. So
>> I figured that I needed to reduce it to 360 degrees, but when I
>> do that I get around 160 degrees.
>>
>> Can anyone help me?
>>
>> Thanks a lot
>> Bill Gill
> I just spotted one problem. The answer I got above, about -160 degrees
> is 360 degrees out. If I add 360 degrees the answer comes out
> in full agreement with Meeus. I just can't figure where the
> other 360 degrees comes from.

It is just a sign convention as to whether you think about reduced
angles as being in 0..360 or -180..180 degrees or as most mathematicians
do 0..2pi. You can add any multiple of a full circle to an angle and
will get the same geometry exactly.

I have not seen any mistakes in AA examples that cannot be immediately
identified as a transposition typo or single digit fault.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

[oriel36]

You mean a bunch of astronomically talentless mathematicians who can create the idea of 361 degree in order to retain their rotating celestial sphere Universe and the horror of homocentricity -

http://www.astronomynotes.com/nakedeye/s7.htm

Some poor folk might imagine they have to jump through hoops to figure out what you lot are up to but they needn't bother.William Blake understood the horror of a clockwork solar system without the technical ins and outs as I have and the utter dreariness of it hence his picture of Newton -

http://spazioinwind.libero.it/shanna/arte_big/newton.jpg

Even when it can be corrected by virtue that the equatorial coordinate system and its modern variants is presented as a step too far from the core principles of the 24 hour AM/PM system and the Lat/Long system derived from the original external references for the orbital motion of the Earth,the Nazi-like unapologetic nature of mathematicians continues.

Your vicious strain of empiricism is coming to an end Brown,the contemporary innovations of graphics,imaging and the original texts are too powerful to hold back by chanting voodoo.

[Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway]

"oriel36" wrote in message
news:d5bbc845-e6dd-4a07...@googlegroups.com...

On Sunday, August 25, 2013 11:48:55 PM UTC+1, Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of
Medway wrote:
> "oriel36" wrote in message
>
> news:37fb12d2-d47a-4c17...@googlegroups.com...
>
> Run the line of the Earth's orbital motion in a horizontal direction
>
>
>
> ========================
>
> Which direction is a horizontal direction at dawn, midday,
>
> dusk and midnight in London, 52 degrees north on a planet
>
> tilted 23.5 degrees to the ecliptic? Is it North, East, South or
>
> West from "the observer concentrating on the orbital motion
>
> of the Earth" ?
>
>
>
> -- Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway

You just don't have a feel for what is going on at the moment but your
grandkids will love it

============================================
My grandkids want to know which direction is a horizontal

direction at dawn, midday, dusk and midnight in London,
52 degrees north on a planet tilted 23.5 degrees to the
ecliptic? Is it North, East, South or West from "the observer
concentrating on the orbital motion of the Earth"?

Needless to say, a clueless babbling imbecile like you doesn't
know what he's ranting about.

[Martin Brown]

On 24/08/2013 00:35, Bill Gill wrote:
> On 8/23/2013 6:11 PM, oriel36 wrote:
>
>>
>> Longitude cannot be anything other than geometric and it is specific
>> to the Earth's rotational characteristics.The longitude of the Sun has
>> no meaning as the Earth's Lat/Long system is based on the average time
>> it takes the Sun to return to noon within as 1461 day system formatted
>> in a 365/365/365/366 day framework.If you are an astronomer you will
>> know immediately that there is always going to be a mismatch between
>> the rotation of the planet and the Sun's position with each cycle by
>> virtue that once you include the time/date system you are
>> automatically reducing the observations to an assertion of constant
>> rotation and bypassing the natural variations in orbital motion which
>> produces the inequality.
>>
>> They came across this issue a long time ago -
>>
>> http://books.google.ie/books?id=MfU3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA27&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
>>
>>
>> Your post reminds me of these guys who are nitpicking over tiny
>> fractions of a second by assuming that stellar circumpolar motion
>> equates directly with terrestrial longitudes and rotation while being
>> a full rotation out each orbital cycle.
>>
>> There are about a dozen different inputs you are ignoring
>> notwithstanding that even guys like Huygens got it wrong in converting
>> the Sun's motion into terrestrial longitudes via the EoT -

>>
>> " Here take notice, that the Sun or the Earth passes through the 12

>> constellations, or makes an entire revolution in the Ecliptic in 365
>> days, 5 hours 49 min. or there about, and that those days, reckon'd
>> from noon to noon,
>> are of different lenghts; as is known to all that are vers'd in
>> Astronomy.Now between the longest and the shortest of those days, a
>> day may be taken of such a length, as 365 such days, 5. hours &c. (the
>> same numbers as before) make up, or are equal to that revolution: And
>> this is call'd the Equal or Mean day, according to which the Watches
>> are to be set; and therefore the Hour or Minute shew'd by the Watches,
>> though they be perfectly just and equal, must needs differ almost
>> continually from those that are showed by the Sun, or are reckon'd
>> according to its Motion." Huygens

>>
>> I would give you a hint but from experience I haven't come across
>> anyone with the type of talent to spot the weakness in Huygen's
>> argument although it is quite good.
>>

>> Remember now,ephemerides are a convenience where you project the
>> calendar system into space as a rotating celestial sphere whereas
>> longitudes refer only to the rotational characteristics of the
>> Earth,one helluva difference.
>>
>>
>>
> Thanks for taking the time to respond, but you may be slightly
> misunderstanding what I am trying to do. I am using the algorithms
> in Jean Meeus' book "Astronomical Algorithms" to try to determine
> various things that I need to know in order to develop conversion
> routines between the Gregorian calendar and various calendars based
> on different ideas. One of the major differences between the Gregorian
> calendar and others is that the Gregorian Calendar (GC) is based on a
> Solar year, with various corrections to make it match the actual year.
> Most of the other calendars are at least partially based on the Lunar
> year and therefore I need to be able to calculate the phases of the
> moon, the times of the Solstices and Equinoxes, and, for the Chinese
> Calendar, the 24 Solar Terms, which are evenly space at 15 degree
> intervals of the geocentric Solar Longitude. That is the angle
> between the reference meridian (Greenwich, England for UT) and the
> position of the Sun at that time. I have learned that much in my
> wanderings through Meeus. In his book Meeus provides a great many
> algorithms to calculate many different types of astronomical
> phenomena. This is the calculation I am attempting.
>
> And to go on beyond that, in my program I am coming up with some
> items that don't seem to work the way Meeus describes them. This
> is one of those cases. I now have that problem worked out, but I
> still have some other problems.

>
> The next problem was that the short form algorithm I was trying
> when I developed the problem I originally posted about didn't give
> good enough results. The Chinese calendar is based, to a large
> extent on the 24 Solar Terms I mentioned above. If the program
> is working on a term that is very close to midnight a few minutes
> error in either direction may cause a months error in the date.
> So I needed something better. That pushed me to use the long
> form in Chapter 32 of the book. This involved a large number
> of terms which I have incorporated and very carefully proofed.
> Now I find that there is still an error of several minutes
> in the output of my program. And when I tried checking for
> a date in 1980 there was an error of several hours. I don't much
> think Meeus got it wrong in his book, so there must be an error
> in my code, but I can't find anything wrong. Maybe somebody here
> will be able to at least suggest somewhere to start looking.
>

> Thanks for the help.

Assuming here that you are only concerned with computing the right
answers as opposed to making your own a home brew version for fun then
you might find that the VSOP87 code does what you want:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_variations_of_the_planetary_orbits#VSOP87

ISTR that the last known error (a fault in the handling of continuation
cards in FORTRAN source) was eliminated shortly after the discovery of
the binary pulsar ~1984 which provided a precise enough reference to
find a tiny periodic term applied incorrectly to Jupiter's position.

Meeus's books use truncated versions of these series.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

[Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway]

"oriel36" wrote in message
news:ea3d5a13-60d1-4a08...@googlegroups.com...

=====================================================
You mean you are so astronomically stupid and talentless that you can create
the idea of a celestial sphere Universe that rotates 361 degrees daily and
the horror of Kelleher's autism.

[oriel36]

It doesn't matter whether you or anyone else here considers it a common pool of information,whether I am instructing a wide range of readers or shoving it down their throats - the software and the empirical approach for locating planetary positions,the Sun or moon's location or the convenience of 'predicting' astronomical events as times and dates within the calendar system. Originating in an exceptionally unethical conclusion which assigned significance to a rotating celestial sphere and right ascension in an attempt to bundle the daily and orbital motions of the Earth into one homogenous motion run off the Earth's rotation,this predictive convenience is based on 3 orbital periods of 365 days and 1 orbital period of 366 days.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitude_of_the_ascending_node

The short answer is that it is not possible to transfer planetary positions into 'perturbations'.This ideology only sprung up when they shifted to accurate watches using the equatorial coordinate system and mistook the natural 11 minute shortfall in orbital positions across 3 orbital circuits that is over-compensated after the 4th cycle which gives the appearance of an orderly progression but again,works off the 365/365/365/366 day framework -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitude_of_the_ascending_node


To restore astronomy to a creative and productive endeavor and allow the empiricists to actually work on productive material needs the responsibility and urgency of 'Houston,we have a problem !' otherwise the endeavor will fizzle out along with the gray heads that want to keep the Ra/Dec corpse dancing.

[Ben]

> To restore astronomy to a creative and productive endeavor and allow the empiricists to actually work on productive material needs the responsibility and urgency of 'Houston,we have a problem !' otherwise the endeavor will fizzle out along with the gray heads that want to keep the Ra/Dec corpse dancing.

Get outa here Gerald.

[Quadibloc]

On Monday, August 26, 2013 1:36:40 AM UTC-6, oriel36 wrote:

> You mean a bunch of astronomically talentless mathematicians who can create
> the idea of 361 degree in order to retain their rotating celestial sphere
> Universe and the horror of homocentricity -

When you calculate angles, you might get extra full circles; this doesn't involve warping our conception of directions.

However, surely it is better for astronomers to be talented...

> Some poor folk might imagine they have to jump through hoops to figure out
> what you lot are up to but they needn't bother.William Blake understood the
> horror of a clockwork solar system without the technical ins and outs as I
> have and the utter dreariness of it hence his picture of Newton -

Comparing Newton to Archimedes is praise, not blame...

John Savard

[oriel36]

On Monday, August 26, 2013 7:20:45 PM UTC+1, Ben wrote:
> > To restore astronomy to a creative and productive endeavor and allow the empiricists to actually work on productive material needs the responsibility and urgency of 'Houston,we have a problem !' otherwise the endeavor will fizzle out along with the gray heads that want to keep the Ra/Dec corpse dancing.
>
>
>
> Get outa here Gerald.

Is there something absolutely stupendously difficult with the fact that there is no external reference for the rotation of the Earth through 360 degrees ?,trying the sidereal time value and you lose the Lat/Long system,try the Sun through 360 degrees and you lose the variations in the natural noon cycle or try 24 hours and 361 degrees and you lose geometry entirely.

There is a mismatch between observations using the 1461 natural noon cycles covering 4 orbital periods and the raw data based on 365 1/4 rotational cycles for one orbital period for the format all astronomers have used including you troublesome bunch is the 365/366 day format.

[Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway]

"oriel36" wrote in message
news:a10036dc-1fa8-4f42...@googlegroups.com...

On Monday, August 26, 2013 7:20:45 PM UTC+1, Ben wrote:
> > To restore astronomy to a creative and productive endeavor and allow the
> > empiricists to actually work on productive material needs the
> > responsibility and urgency of 'Houston,we have a problem !' otherwise
> > the endeavor will fizzle out along with the gray heads that want to keep
> > the Ra/Dec corpse dancing.
>
>
>
> Get outa here Gerald.

Is there something absolutely stupendously difficult with the fact that
there is no external reference for the rotation of the Earth through 360
degrees ?

===========================================================
It is now an absolutely stupendously difficult "fact" that Kelleher's
beloved Sirius has vanished and is no longer a reference for the
rotation of the Earth through 360 degrees.

Get outa here, shithead.

[Mike Collins]

oriel36 <kellehe...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Monday, August 26, 2013 7:20:45 PM UTC+1, Ben wrote:
>>> To restore astronomy to a creative and productive endeavor and allow
>>> the empiricists to actually work on productive material needs the
>>> responsibility and urgency of 'Houston,we have a problem !' otherwise
>>> the endeavor will fizzle out along with the gray heads that want to
>>> keep the Ra/Dec corpse dancing.
>>
>>
>>
>> Get outa here Gerald.
>
> Is there something absolutely stupendously difficult with the fact that
> there is no external reference for the rotation of the Earth through 360 degrees ?

Of course there is. It's called the universe. It seems to rotate 360
degrees around a point close to Polaris every sidereal day. What could be
the explanation for this?
Perhaps the Earth rotates relative to the Universe once every sidereal day.

That seems to explain the extreme regularity of the sidereal day compared
to the strangely inconsistent solar day.

>trying the sidereal time value and you lose the Lat/Long system,try the
> Sun through 360 degrees and you lose the variations in the natural noon
> cycle or try 24 hours and 361 degrees and you lose geometry entirely.
>

Why do you lose latitude and longitude?
The Earth is still the same. Is till live at about 52 degrees N and 1
degree East whatever the sky does. And I can even calculate this from the
positions of the stars moon and planets thanks to Makelyne.
But I don't need to do this because I can get my position from satellite
navigation thanks to the Newtonian and Einsteinian calculations that make
this possible. Not forgetting the speed of light.

> There is a mismatch between observations using the 1461 natural noon
> cycles covering 4 orbital periods and the raw data based on 365 1/4
> rotational cycles for one orbital period for the format all astronomers
> have used including you troublesome bunch is the 365/366 day format.

Only in your mind.
And it's not 365.25.
Or we wouldn't be using the Gregorian calendar.

[Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway]

"Mike Collins" wrote in message
news:747016816399246715.067110...@news.eternal-september.org...

I can get my position from satellite
navigation thanks to the Newtonian and Einsteinian calculations that make
this possible. Not forgetting the speed of light.

===============================================================
What Einsteinian calculations does your sat-nav perform that makes it
possible for you to be on the opposite side of the river when you are on
this side?

[Mike Collins]

I'm afraid my satnav doesn't do this but you can read all about the
corrections here

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Error_analysis_for_the_Global_Positioning_System

I'm sure you already know this but like Oriel you prefer to ignore the
facts and assume its all a conspiracy.



http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Error_analysis_for_the_Global_Positioning_System

[oriel36]

On Monday, August 26, 2013 11:07:24 PM UTC+1, Mike Collins wrote:
> oriel36 <kellehe...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Monday, August 26, 2013 7:20:45 PM UTC+1, Ben wrote:
>
> >>> To restore astronomy to a creative and productive endeavor and allow
>
> >>> the empiricists to actually work on productive material needs the
>
> >>> responsibility and urgency of 'Houston,we have a problem !' otherwise
>
> >>> the endeavor will fizzle out along with the gray heads that want to
>
> >>> keep the Ra/Dec corpse dancing.
>
> >>
>
> >>
>
> >>
>
> >> Get outa here Gerald.
>
> >
>
> > Is there something absolutely stupendously difficult with the fact that
>
> > there is no external reference for the rotation of the Earth through 360 degrees ?
>
> Of course there is. It's called the universe. It seems to rotate 360
>
> degrees around a point close to Polaris every sidereal day. What could be
>
> the explanation for this?
>

Let me put it this way,they do these historical battle reenactments every weekend close to a place where I go for a walk and the soldier dressed in his late 17th century regalia explains the development of the firearm including the bullet to tourists.If you look at the faces of the tourists as the pretend soldier explains terms such as 'flash-in-the-pan','keeping your powder dry' and all the other phrases we still retain without knowing their origin,you can see their faces light up with recognition as gun and bullet have a definite historical and technical trajectory.

It is supposed to happen among readers here with the development of timekeeping from the development of the calendar system for agricultural and civil purposes like the celebration of festivals to the origins of the 24 hour AM/PM system and the Lat/Long system for navigational and multiple other purposes including the highly useful Ra/Dec system and its celestial sphere geometry.

Watches didn't grow on trees,they came in an ordered way that took thousands of years to develop including the 10 day drift which naturally arises from the over-compensation of the 24 hour leap day so when Flamsteed lunged at his homocentric conclusion using the stellar circumpolar return of Sirius,he was basically burying the role Sirius actually played in the development of the core principle of timekeeping that 1461 days in the 365/366 day format bookend 4 orbital circuits of the planet.

> Perhaps the Earth rotates relative to the Universe once every sidereal day.
>
>
>
> That seems to explain the extreme regularity of the sidereal day compared
>
> to the strangely inconsistent solar day.
>
>

The one thing I can count on,at least so far, is the consistent clamming up of contemporaries when they should engage to sort the issues out,not by disproving the homocentric view but by appreciating the historical development of timekeeping including the development of the Ra/Dec system which shows up in these software programs based on a rotating celestial sphere and ephemerides.

The idea of the 'solar vs sidereal day' has already been jettisoned for a new fiction which tries to insert a 24 hour rotation period for the Earth without any appeal to external references.They found a mickey mouse organization to pull the trigger on severing the ties between timekeeping and planetary dynamics but just quite can't do it -

"At the time of the dinosaurs, Earth completed one rotation in about 23 hours," says MacMillan, who is a member of the VLBI team at NASA Goddard. "In the year 1820, a rotation took exactly 24 hours, or 86,400 standard seconds. Since 1820, the mean solar day has increased by about 2.5 milliseconds." NASA

This fabrication of history is unconscionable because it denies students the ability to not only appreciate the technical issues involved but the historical achievements and the milestones in the development of timekeeping including the sprawling history of longitude and the cringing hostility of your side to Harrison's innovation.

>
>
>
> >trying the sidereal time value and you lose the Lat/Long system,try the
>
> > Sun through 360 degrees and you lose the variations in the natural noon
>
> > cycle or try 24 hours and 361 degrees and you lose geometry entirely.
>
> >
>
> Why do you lose latitude and longitude?
>

The Equation of Time represents the average time of the cumulative natural noon cycles where the average transfers conveniently to 'constant ' rotation and the steady progressions on each 24 hour day into the next 24 hour day within the calendar framework.This is where it works along with the Lat/Long system and allows your side to determine the average return of a star to a location.The 'average' 24 hour day therefore has no external reference as its roots are in the 1461 natural noon cycles in a 365/365/365/366 day format covering the four times the Earth makes a circuit of the Sun.

The problem with the guys working with the ephemerides framework is that they refuse to widen their view to take into account the full statement in that a star returns to the same spot in 23 hours 56 minutes 04 seconds of a 24 hour day within the 365/366 day framework at that is a long,long way from declaring rotation is constant.

> The Earth is still the same. Is till live at about 52 degrees N and 1
>
> degree East whatever the sky does. And I can even calculate this from the
>
> positions of the stars moon and planets thanks to Makelyne.

Try Harrison who stood alone against the academics of Oxford and Cambridge -

"The application of a Timekeeper to this discovery is founded upon the following principles: the earth's surface is divided into 360 equal parts (by imaginary lines drawn from North to South) which are called Degrees of Longitude; and its daily revolution Eastward round its own axis is performed in 24 hours; consequently in that period, each of those imaginary lines or degrees, becomes successively opposite to the Sun (which makes the noon or precise middle of the day at each of those degrees;) and it must follow, that from the time any one of
those lines passes the Sun, till the next passes, must be just four minutes, for 24 hours being divided by 360 will give that quantity; so that for every degree of Longitude we sail Westward, it will be noon with us four minutes the later, and for every degree Eastward four minutes the sooner, and so on in proportion for any greater or less quantity. Now, the exact time of the day at the place where we are,can be ascertained by well known and easy observations of the Sun if visible for a few minutes at any time from his being ten degrees high until within an hour of noon, or from an hour after noon until he is only 10 degrees high in the afternoon; if therefore, at any time when such observation is made, a Timekeeper tells us at the same moment what o'clock it is at the place we sailed from, our Longitude is clearly discovered." John Harrison

Like Newton's attempt to explain the Equation of Time as absolute/relative time,you develop a blind spot for Harrison's popular explanation of the 24 hour system and the Lat/Long system .

>
> > There is a mismatch between observations using the 1461 natural noon
>
> > cycles covering 4 orbital periods and the raw data based on 365 1/4
>
> > rotational cycles for one orbital period for the format all astronomers
>
> > have used including you troublesome bunch is the 365/366 day format.
>
>
>
> Only in your mind.
>
> And it's not 365.25.
>
> Or we wouldn't be using the Gregorian calendar.

I will treat this in a separate response by virtue of its importance in that Sirius was used by the Egyptians as an annual(orbital) marker for the number of days(rotations) to keep the days fixed to the orbital points whereas the late 17th century mutations than began with Flamsteed used Sirius in stellar circumpolar motion using the 24 hour clock.It is here that all problems get resolved in allowing the original development of timekeeping to shine through an exceptionally careless conclusion of modeling planetary dynamics using timekeeping averages -

"... our clocks kept so good a correspondence with the Heavens that I doubt it not but they would prove the revolutions of the Earth to be isochronical (constant) ... " John Flamsteed 1677

This is not like the Piltdown man scenario where the best empiricists hoped for was to die before they corrected the phony fossil inserted in human evolutionary development,people can make an effort right here and right now to demonstrate that not all are mediocre status driven individuals who do not see the point but true people who absolutely feel responsible for what we believe and teach our children.

[Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway]

"Mike Collins" wrote in message

news:1223835914399251581.74827...@news.eternal-september.org...

===============================================================
So your satnav doesn't use Einsteinian calculations yet is accurate to 15
metres horizontally and +/- 40 metres vertically
when the signal reflects off nearby buildings, and you cite wackypedia for
its operation.

"To measure the delay, the receiver compares the bit sequence received from
the satellite with an internally generated version." -wackypedia

Does your satnav have an atomic clock to generate its "internally generated
bit sequence" (wackpedia bullshit for "time stamp")?

I prefer to ignore the fiction and make no assumptions about the Holy Church
of Relativity being a conspiracy. Religions and outright bigotry don't
require conspiracies, just imbeciles voluntarily wanting to believe crap.

"That is, the combination of Special and General effects make the net time
dilation at the equator equal to that of the poles, " -- wackypedia.
How convenient!
That's not a conspiracy, that is just plain old-fashioned stupidity.

I'm sure you already know this but like Oriel you prefer to ignore the

FACT that your satnav does NOT contain "Einsteinian calculations",
a FACT that I do NOT ignore, and you ASSUME you can get away with
total bullshit that you LIE about by calling it "facts".
Bleat "baa", Collins, the rest of the sheep do.

[oriel36]

On Monday, August 26, 2013 11:07:24 PM UTC+1, Mike Collins wrote:
> oriel36 <kellehe...@gmail.com> wrote:

>
>

> > There is a mismatch between observations using the 1461 natural noon
>
> > cycles covering 4 orbital periods and the raw data based on 365 1/4
>
> > rotational cycles for one orbital period for the format all astronomers
>
> > have used including you troublesome bunch is the 365/366 day format.
>
>
>
> Only in your mind.
>
> And it's not 365.25.
>
> Or we wouldn't be using the Gregorian calendar.

I see Parker in his element now that you brought up the early 20th century wordplays however the flaws are all back in the late 17th century and the foundations of the equatorial coordinate grid system which imposes a longitude system on the stars and consequently a rotating celestial sphere geometry.

An engineer is expected to trace the roots of a problem and much of the history of it is concentrated right here and especially the observations of Sirius by Flamsteed -

http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/HistTopics/Longitude2.html


He is talking about using this framework to gauge daily rotation -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYqh72i2mhg

The original version of the apparent motion of Sirius through which the Egyptians calculated the annual cycle as roughly 365 1/4 days or 1461 full days (rotations) in proportion to 4 annual (orbital)cycles originates in an observation that does not include stellar circumpolar motion ,this one as Elnath moves behind the glare of the Sun due solely to the orbital motion of the Earth -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=MdFrE7hWj0A

What your crowd tried to do was insist on the return of Sirius to any foreground reference denoted the rotation of the Earth while the Egyptian observation makes the Sun as a foreground reference for the orbital motion of the Earth and the number of times it takes the light of Sirius to shine through the glare of the central Sun as the orbital motion of the Earth puts it far enough to one side of the Sun to be seen after a 70 day disappearance -

http://danmary.org/tiki/show_image.php?id=30

Again,this is not like the Piltdown man episode where men hope they will die before the error is discovered and corrected and that I find really lousy.The fact is that these guys working with ephemerides lose nothing and gain the technical details of its limitations and especially observations of the predicted positions of planets and why this 'perturbation theory' rubbish is worthless or a sign that they haven't come to terms with the issue where there is a mismatch between predictive and interpretative astronomy.

Yes it can be more complicated than rocket science in some instances but certainly not at a level where the apparent motion of Sirius is concerned.The responses so far are not good enough.

[Mike Collins]

http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast162/Unit5/gps.html

[Bill Gill]

On 8/23/2013 11:55 AM, Bill Gill wrote:
> I am starting off simple. I just want to calculate the Longitude
> of the Sun for a given time and date. I am using the algorithm
> in Astronomical Algorithms by Jean Meeus, Chapter 25. I am
> concentrating on the Geometric Longitude only, not the other factors.
> I am having a problem getting the right answer to the example
> Meeus gives in Example 25a. I have written it up in Visual
> Basic and have stepped through the process using the date he
> gives. Everything works just fine up to a point. I get the
> time T , the L0 , the M, and the C all in agreement. Then
> I calculate Theta = L0 + C. I get a completely different answer.
> Meeus says 199.90988 degrees. I get about -200320 degrees. So
> I figured that I needed to reduce it to 360 degrees, but when I
> do that I get around 160 degrees.
>
> Can anyone help me?
>
> Thanks a lot
> Bill Gill

Ok, I have been fussing around with this for several days and
can't seem to find a resolution to my problem. I am using
Meeus' Solar Position algorithm from Chapter 25 of his
book "Astronomical Algorithms". I am also using his
Equinoxes and Solstices algorithm from Chapter 27. They
give different times for the Equinoxes and Solstices.

The results for the March Equinox of 2013 from the 2 algorithms are:
Equinoxes and Solstices: 3/20/2013 11:01:51 AM
Solar Position: 3/20/2013 10:56:38 AM

I have been beating my brains out trying to reconcile the 2
calculations and can't find any errors in my programs.

Both of the algorithms work fine when I run the examples
in the book. The Equinoxes and Solstices gives good agreement
with published values. But I can't get the other one to
match it no matter what I do.

Any body got any advice?

Thanks for all the help I have already gotten and for
any that you can give me now.

Bill Gill

[Ben]

The formulas that Meeus provides can be greatly improved on by an iterative method. The interpolation schemes that he gives in the one of the early chapters do not yield great precision either.

What I have found is that you can "nudge" the times to conform to a specified longitude simply by correcting decimal place until you get the desired level of confidence, usually six or sometimes seven decimal places. This is very easy in Excel and rather quick as well. I'm sure I could write an iteration loop to provide instant answers but I sort of enjoy "currying" the inputs. I don't know how this slower method would work in VBA or whether it would be very tractable at all. I don't know how to code the loop in VBA anyway.

I did write an iteration scheme for *transits* of the Sun, Moon and Planets and it works very precisely. If you want good precision you can't go wrong by entering the decimals of the date individually.

[Ben]

Incidentally, if one writes an iteration set so the the Right Ascension of the Sun and Local Apparent Sidereal Time are in agreement to six or seven decimals then the *Equation of Time* is rendered somewhat obsolete and the barycenter of the Sun is directly on your Meridian.

[Bill Gill]

I think you are describing what I am doing to get the time
of a given longitude from the Solar Position algorithm. I
give the function an approximate date, then see what the
angle returned is. If it isn't right a new date is calculated
based on how far off it is. Then it loops around and does
it again. When the difference between the computed angle
and the desired angle is very small it breaks out of of the
loop and reports that time as the desired time. It of course
isn't right on, but I can get it as close as I want by just
setting the limit small enough.

My problem is to understand which answer is correct, the one
from the Solstice and Equinox algorithm, or the one from the
Solar Position algorithm.

Bill Gill

[Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway]

"Mike Collins" wrote in message

news:717758709399298090.974647...@news.eternal-september.org...

=================================================
which reads :
"A GPS receiver in a car can give accurate readings of position, speed, and
heading in real-time!"
(Thrilling exclamation mark, I'm so excited.)
"To achieve this level of precision, the clock ticks from the GPS satellites
must be known to an accuracy of 20-30 nanoseconds."
"However, because the satellites are constantly moving relative to observers
(there's those observers again, always needed in relativity)
on the Earth, effects predicted by the Special and General theories of
Relativity
must (good word, "must", well worth noting)
be taken into account to achieve the desired 20-30 nanosecond accuracy."

So your satnav doesn't use Einsteinian calculations and doesn't have an
atomic
clock like the satellites, yet it MUST, Collins.
How do you explain that (without citing some more bullshit by some
sophomore eager to please his dumb professor to get a good grade) ?
I get the strong feeling you are trying to bullshit me, Collins. Are you
so full of shit your eyes are brown, Collins?

WANTED: SATNAV DESIGN ENGINEER. Must be able to add GR effects
and subtract SR effects to make the net time dilation at the equator
equal to that of the poles, must be able to use the words "geodesic"
and "observer". Ideal position for students of prestadigitation, smoke
and mirrors. Salary based on payment by results.

[Ben]

Bill,
I would definitely use the Solar Position Algorithm. It's very accurate.

[Mike Collins]

Quote from the same article including the bits you don't want to quote.

The precision is phenomenal: even a simple hand-held GPS receiver can
determine your absolute position on the surface of the Earth to within 5 to
10 meters in only a few seconds (with differential techiques that compare
two nearby receivers, precisions of order centimeters or millimeters in
relative position are often obtained in under an hour or so). A GPS

receiver in a car can give accurate readings of position, speed, and
heading in real-time!

To achieve this level of precision, the clock ticks from the GPS satellites
must be known to an accuracy of 20-30 nanoseconds. However, because the

satellites are constantly moving relative to observers on the Earth,
effects predicted by the Special and General theories of Relativity must be

taken into account to achieve the desired 20-30 nanosecond accuracy.

You dig yourself deeper into holes just like Oriel.

[Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway]

"Mike Collins" wrote in message

news:141256807399338526.318485...@news.eternal-september.org...

==================================================
And didn't bother reading since it contained no computations, just
smoke and mirrors.

The bottom line :
"Relativity is not just some abstract mathematical theory: understanding it
is absolutely essential for our global navigation system to work properly!"

Looks like your satnav doesn't work properly, Collins.
Buy a new one with a picture of Einstein on it, place it in the ground
in the direction of Ulm (Einstein's birthplace) , kneel in front of it and
put your arse in the air, pray to your prophet Einstein for guidance.
I'll carry on with Newtonian calculations.

FOR SALE:
Satnav with Newtonian calculations only, £99.
Satnav with Newtonian calculations and a fake autograph of Einstein with
picture, £1099.

[Bill Gill]

Thanks, I'll do that.

Bill

[oriel36]

On Tuesday, August 27, 2013 11:03:30 PM UTC+1, Ben wrote:

>
> Incidentally, if one writes an iteration set so the the Right Ascension of the Sun and Local Apparent Sidereal Time are in agreement to six or seven decimals then the *Equation of Time* is rendered somewhat obsolete and the barycenter of the Sun is directly on your Meridian.

Just goes to show that these mathematical dummies haven't the foggiest notion what the unequal length in the natural noon cycles represents in terms of the Earth daily and orbital motions (hence the Equation of Time) and I have to shake my head seeing another talentless homocentrist declare that the Equation of Time is obsolete,after all,they tried make the astronomical correction obsolete 100 years ago when they couldn't make sense of Sir Isaac's absolute/relative time as an idiosyncratic 'definition' of the Equation of Time -

"Absolute time, in astronomy, is distinguished from relative, by the equation or correlation of the vulgar time. For the natural days are truly unequal, though they are commonly considered as equal and used for a measure of time;" Newton

So Ben,all you have done is demonstrate that you haven't a clue about the 100 year old wordplay built around Newton's absolute/relative time,space and motion but at least you are not alone.Just to let you know,all you Ra/Dec software guys are stuck in the celestial sphere clockwork solar system they thought they had escaped in the early 20th century but then again,when have any of you cared whether you were stuck or not.

Look at the generation that came before you such as Collins and Parker,trying to make themselves relevant but even their view has the slightest traces of astronomy in it whereas the new generation doesn't know nor care.They have even generated a 'fact' out of thin air by creating an assertion of planetary rotation once in 23 hours at the time of the dinosaurs and 24 hours today so all external references for timekeeping have now gone into hypothesis instead of direct observations -

"At the time of the dinosaurs, Earth completed one rotation in about 23 hours," says MacMillan, who is a member of the VLBI team at NASA Goddard. "In the year 1820, a rotation took exactly 24 hours, or 86,400 standard seconds. Since 1820, the mean solar day has increased by about 2.5 milliseconds." NASA

Keep on talking,casting around wild declarations about the obsolescence of the Equation of Time may be easy in the moderated forums but this forum you don't get away with assertions like that so easy as long as I am around.The older guys don't even see that the next generation of software guys couldn't care less about astronomy nor relativity as they move towards complete homocentric views.

[Ben]

Get outa here, Gerald.

[oriel36]

That was a brave declaration from you about making the Equation of Time obsolete but they tried that with great fanfare 100 years ago or did you not get the memo -

"Absolute time, in astronomy, is distinguished from relative, by the equation or correlation of the vulgar time. For the natural days are truly unequal, though they are commonly considered as equal and used for a measure of time;" Newton

Looks like you are in a tight spot there Ben,you don't want to let the side down but then again you are the new breed of homocentrist dithering around with hypothesis that now doesn't even recognize planetary dynamics but uses dinosaurs as reference points !.

"At the time of the dinosaurs, Earth completed one rotation in about 23 hours," says MacMillan, who is a member of the VLBI team at NASA Goddard. "In the year 1820, a rotation took exactly 24 hours, or 86,400 standard seconds. Since 1820, the mean solar day has increased by about 2.5 milliseconds." NASA

Once they use VLBI they are using a rotating celestial sphere framework so know your place in the scheme of things as astronomically talentless and enjoy your odd clockwork solar system and a rotating sphere of stars.

[Ben]

Get outa here, Gerald.

[oriel36]

On Wednesday, August 28, 2013 11:30:22 AM UTC+1, Ben wrote:

>
> Get outa here, Gerald.

Tell me all about getting rid of the Equation of Time and I will shove this down your throat the same way you dummies have been doing it for 100 years without actually knowing that you are doing it -

"Absolute time, in astronomy, is distinguished from relative, by the
equation or correlation of the vulgar time. For the natural days are
truly unequal, though they are commonly considered as equal and used

for a measure of time; astronomers correct this inequality for their
more accurate deducing of the celestial motions..... The necessity of
which equation, for determining the times of a phænomenon, is evinced
as well from the experiments of the pendulum clock, as by eclipses of
the satellites of Jupiter." Newton

Stick with what you know,in this case your talentless and intellectually worthless rotating celestial sphere,great for predicting astronomical events but not much else.

Don't worry son,Sir Isaac was not much better than you are with the Equation of Time and what it means judging from his comments on Roemer's use of it in respect to Io,Jupiter's satellite to which he refers in 'defining' absolute/relative time -

" But by an Argument taken from the Aequations of the times of the Eclipses of Jupiter's Satellites, it seems that Light is propagated intime, spending in its passage from the Sun to us about seven Minutes of time: And therefore I have chosen to define Rays and Refractions in such general terms as may agree to Light in both cases." Optics 1704

'Aequations of the times' indeed !,another mathematician chanting voodoo at what is basically a simply correspondence between the variations in the natural noon cycle and the 24 hour AM/PM cycle.

Why don't you just respond with 'woof,woof' because the next time you try to make the Equation of Time obsolete remember Einstein and his buddies got there before you.

[Ben]

Get outa here, Gerald.

[oriel36]

Where are all the great defenders of Newton now ?,why have they failed to show up to defend the astronomical observational and timekeeping certainty of the Equation of Time ?.Look at you,a clueless empirical homocentrist unable to inspect the paragraph which seemingly give empiricists the escape route out of the clockwork solar system and 'revolutionize' ideas of time,space and motion.

"Absolute time, in astronomy, is distinguished from relative, by the equation or correlation of the vulgar time. For the natural days are truly unequal, though they are commonly considered as equal and used for a measure of time; astronomers correct this inequality for their more accurate deducing of the celestial motions..... The necessity of which equation, for determining the times of a phænomenon, is evinced as well from the experiments of the pendulum clock, as by eclipses of the satellites of Jupiter." Newton

The Equation of Time introduces one of the most important assertions in all science,at least where human innovation meets planetary cycles.It asserts that daily rotation is constant based on an average 24 hour day and that the average day and natural rotations over 1461 days/4 years dovetail with 1461 rotations/4 orbital circuits.

You freaks,and I really wish I could avoid the term,assert there are 1465 rotations for 4 orbital circuits or the new crowd which do away with cyclical references altogether and appear to the 'time of the dinosaurs' to promote the idea that the Earth turns once in 24 hours or some other fiction like the 'solar vs sidereal' ideology with its subhuman idea of 1465 rotations in 1461 twenty four hour days -

"It rotates 366 1/4 times on its own axis so we see the stars appear to rotate 366 1/4 times and we experience 365 1/4 noons - i.e. 365 1/4 solar days."

http://www.wallingfordclock.talktalk.net/Sidereal%20Time.htm

Put simply,none of you are good enough to put the annual observation of Sirius in context of the 1461 natural noon cycles it takes to complete 4 orbital circuits and then the transfer of the variations in these 1461 natural noon cycles into the average 24 hour AM/PM cycle where the 'average' terms gets transferred to 'constant' rotation as an assertion hence the Lat/Long system.

You all have received an astronomical education of many of the most important aspects of astronomy,timekeeping and terrestrial sciences which mesh with planetary dynamics.Astronomy cannot be held back by a bunch of software guys who are unable or unwilling to accept the limitations of their own system.

You are the one who wished to get rid of the Equation of Time but they tried that when they decided there was no such thing as the absolute/relative time of Sir Isaac's phrasing of the Equation of Time.

[Ben]

Get outa here, Gerald.

[Dr J R Stockton]

In sci.astro.amateur message <kvj21p$n4u$1...@dont-email.me>, Tue, 27 Aug
2013 15:26:35, Bill Gill <bill...@cox.net> posted:

>Ok, I have been fussing around with this for several days and
>can't seem to find a resolution to my problem. I am using
>Meeus' Solar Position algorithm from Chapter 25 of his
>book "Astronomical Algorithms". I am also using his
>Equinoxes and Solstices algorithm from Chapter 27. They
>give different times for the Equinoxes and Solstices.
>
>The results for the March Equinox of 2013 from the 2 algorithms are:
>Equinoxes and Solstices: 3/20/2013 11:01:51 AM
>Solar Position: 3/20/2013 10:56:38 AM
>
>I have been beating my brains out trying to reconcile the 2
>calculations and can't find any errors in my programs.

Are you sure that the arithmetic engine that you are using is of
sufficient accuracy?

For example, two expressions that give matching good results with IEEE
Doubles might give differently bad results with IEEE Singles.


--
(c) John Stockton, near London. Mail ?.?.Stoc...@physics.org
Web <http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/> - FAQish topics, acronyms, and links.

[Bill Gill]

On 8/28/2013 2:33 PM, Dr J R Stockton wrote:
> In sci.astro.amateur message <kvj21p$n4u$1...@dont-email.me>, Tue, 27 Aug
> 2013 15:26:35, Bill Gill <bill...@cox.net> posted:
>
>> Ok, I have been fussing around with this for several days and
>> can't seem to find a resolution to my problem. I am using
>> Meeus' Solar Position algorithm from Chapter 25 of his
>> book "Astronomical Algorithms". I am also using his
>> Equinoxes and Solstices algorithm from Chapter 27. They
>> give different times for the Equinoxes and Solstices.
>>
>> The results for the March Equinox of 2013 from the 2 algorithms are:
>> Equinoxes and Solstices: 3/20/2013 11:01:51 AM
>> Solar Position: 3/20/2013 10:56:38 AM
>>
>> I have been beating my brains out trying to reconcile the 2
>> calculations and can't find any errors in my programs.
>
>
> Are you sure that the arithmetic engine that you are using is of
> sufficient accuracy?
>
> For example, two expressions that give matching good results with IEEE
> Doubles might give differently bad results with IEEE Singles.
>
>

I'm using Doubles from Microsoft Visual Basic. They say the
range is:

-1.79769313486231570E+308 through -4.94065645841246544E-324 † for
negative values;

4.94065645841246544E-324 through 1.79769313486231570E+308 † for positive
values

I should think that would be fine enough.

When I run the program with the examples that Meeus gives in the
book they both come out with the same answers he has.

I'm going to go with Ben's advice and use the Solar Position
algorithm. I will check it against another source before I finally
accept that it is correct, but that seems to be the best
thing. Ben says that it is very accurate.

It is possible that the Equinoxes and Solstices algorithm isn't
as accurate as it could be. After all a few minutes error in
those values isn't really going to kill any body. Unless
somebody is doing something that I can't right off of think of
that much difference isn't going to make a lot of difference.
I don't know of much of anything that depends on an extremely
accurate knowledge of the time of an equinox.

Bill Gill

[Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway]

"Bill Gill" wrote in message news:kvm8qr$ktc$1...@dont-email.me...

====================================
Bill, Earth's closest approach to the Sun (perihelion) wanders by DEGREES
in this table:
http://www.usno.navy.mil/USNO/astronomical-applications/data-services/earth-seasons
Jan 2 2002 to Jan 5 2012, that's 3 days and 3 degrees in the interval of 10
orbits, without
nit-picking the hour.
Whether it is the barycentre of the Earth-Moon system or the surface of the
Earth
that is closest to Sun isn't stated and you are free to conjecture, but
something isn't
right.
And no, it won't kill anybody, I agree, but double precision accuracy isn't
needed
to find 3 degrees in 360 degrees or 365 days, it's almost 1%.
Unless you have a firm reference for perihelion or aphelion you have no
basis for
finding the equinoxes roughly midway between them. Stockton is barking up
the wrong tree with his computer accuracy.

[oriel36]

On Wednesday, August 28, 2013 10:57:01 PM UTC+1, Ben wrote:

>
> Get outa here, Gerald.

Look at you so helpless,acting out what Leibniz knew of your kind -

"These are the imaginings of incomplete- notions-philosophers who make space an absolute reality. Such notions are apt to be fudged up by devotees of pure mathematics, whose whole subject- matter is the playthings of imagination, but they are destroyed by higher reasoning" Leibniz

You make predictions of the time and date of the Equinoxes using the calendar framework so I assure you that the Earth does not orbit the Sun in 3 years of 365 days and 1 year of 366 days through which you arrive at your values and the homocentric idea of the Sun crossing an imaginary equatorial meridian on a rotating celestial sphere.

This is what the approach to and the Equinox looks like astronomically -

http://www.daviddarling.info/images/Uranus_rings_changes.jpg

Once you understand what is happening dynamically then you have the reason why natural noon cycles vary,what the Equation of Time does and especially that the predictive convenience uses a 365/365/365/366 day predictive framework and all the homocentric views that go along with it.

[Martin Brown]

The key question is whether you have all the random constants that the
series use explicitly with all their mantissa correctly present. A typo
in any one of them or a failure to force double precision type can leave
you with a program text that looks right but is interpreted wrong.

>
> When I run the program with the examples that Meeus gives in the
> book they both come out with the same answers he has.
>
> I'm going to go with Ben's advice and use the Solar Position
> algorithm. I will check it against another source before I finally
> accept that it is correct, but that seems to be the best
> thing. Ben says that it is very accurate.
>
> It is possible that the Equinoxes and Solstices algorithm isn't
> as accurate as it could be. After all a few minutes error in
> those values isn't really going to kill any body. Unless
> somebody is doing something that I can't right off of think of
> that much difference isn't going to make a lot of difference.
> I don't know of much of anything that depends on an extremely
> accurate knowledge of the time of an equinox.

If you think about equinoxes there is a continuum of values clustered
around 12 hours since the sun is moving through the celestial equator
*at* just one instant and the actual day/night ratios on either side
will vary. The moment of solstice is much better defined.

What are you actually trying to do?

It might be possible to suggest a better method. The full VSOP87 series
will give you more accurate answers than Meeus's truncated ones.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

[Bill Gill]

I'm not quite sure what you are talking about. I'm not really
paying any attention to perihelion. I am looking at the equinoxes
and solstices. Also I believe that Meeus' algorithms all take
into account the wandering of the the various bits and pieces
that cause variations. They almost all have a long list
of terms that have to be included in the calculation. As I
understand it those terms are the ones that correct for all
the disturbances.

Bill

[oriel36]

On Thursday, August 29, 2013 7:21:47 AM UTC+1, Martin Brown wrote:


> If you think about equinoxes there is a continuum of values clustered
>
> around 12 hours since the sun is moving through the celestial equator
>
> *at* just one instant and the actual day/night ratios on either side
>
> will vary. The moment of solstice is much better defined.

Mathematicians like Brown here have severe difficulties with the variations in the natural noon cycle through which the steady progression of 24 hour days are derived by equalizing the variations through the Equation of Time.There is no variation in inclination involved in the natural noon variations notwithstanding that the variations themselves are global as long as the Sun can be seen and natural noon determined.

You poor people cannot help yourself in attempting to define and orbital term using the equatorial coordinate system and an imagined celestial Equator and its celestial sphere geometry imposed on the Universe.

If it were possible to adapt the graphic to represent the Earth's orbital behavior as it makes a circuit of the Sun in the animation to the right,the '+' sign would represent the ecliptic axis around which the planet turns with the polar coordinates offset by 23 1/2 degrees from that ecliptic polar view -

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Tidal_locking_of_the_Moon_with_the_Earth.gif

You dreary people won't even recognize that variations in natural noon come solely from the orbital input as the Earth varies its speed as it orbits the Earth.

>
> Regards,
>
> Martin Brown

[Bill Gill]

I am working on calendar algorithms. For the Solstices and
Equinoxes I don't need high precision. But when I start looking
at the Chinese calendar they have rules about when a new month
starts and when a leap month occurs. The main thing is that
you have to know not only the day on which a new moon occurs,
but when a Solar Term occurs. The Solar Terms occur every 15
degrees around the Sun. If the New Moon or a Solar Term
occurs near midnight then a few minutes error can cause a
months error in calculating a date. So I don't need great
accuracy in the equinoxes and solstices, but I do in the
New Moon and Solar Terms.

I think that Meeus' algorithms will be good enough to figure
things, it was just the discrepancy between the calculation
of the equinox using the Equinox Solstice algorithm
and the Sun Position algorithm that had me bothered.

Bill

[Quadibloc]

On Wednesday, August 28, 2013 3:37:32 PM UTC-6, oriel36 wrote:

> Where are all the great defenders of Newton now ?,why have they failed to
> show up to defend the astronomical observational and timekeeping certainty of
> the Equation of Time ?

http://www.quadibloc.com/science/eot.htm

> You all have received an astronomical education of many of the most important
> aspects of astronomy,timekeeping and terrestrial sciences which mesh with
> planetary dynamics.

As your posts are very difficult to understand, I think you're giving yourself too much credit here. You are not making clear the grounds for your objections to modern astronomical science.

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

On Thursday, August 29, 2013 7:30:30 AM UTC-6, oriel36 wrote:

> You dreary people won't even recognize that variations in natural noon come
> solely from the orbital input as the Earth varies its speed as it orbits the

[Sun]

Actually, that's *precisely* what I explain on my page at

http://www.quadibloc.com/science/eot.htm

The Earth's orbit around the Sun sweeps out different angles in different times, in the plane of the Earth's equator, from two causes, Kepler's law of equal areas for an elliptical orbit, and the difference between the equator and the ecliptic.

However, your statement implies that the Earth's rotation is constant, and does not vary with the Equation of Time, if those variations come from the orbit and not from the rotation.

But that is exactly, precisely, what proves the Earth rotates in 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds - not in 24 hours. If the Earth rotated in 24 hours, then that rotation (if it's measured from the Sun, and not some imaginary point that follows a wandering analemma path around the Sun for no reason) would vary with the Equation of Time.

So close, and yet so far...

John Savard

[Martin Brown]

On 29/08/2013 14:28, Bill Gill wrote:

>> -- Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway
> I'm not quite sure what you are talking about. I'm not really
> paying any attention to perihelion. I am looking at the equinoxes
> and solstices. Also I believe that Meeus' algorithms all take
> into account the wandering of the the various bits and pieces
> that cause variations. They almost all have a long list
> of terms that have to be included in the calculation. As I
> understand it those terms are the ones that correct for all
> the disturbances.
>
> Bill

They are actually a severely truncated version of VSOP87. It only
corrects for the major terms down to some threshold good enough for most
amateur observing since the moon is big bright and hard to miss!

The apparent position of the moon is particularly tricky to do right and
the series for it's position in Meeus isn't that great.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

[oriel36]

You are fine,you come from the new breed of homocentrist as opposed to the older 'solar vs sidereal' bunch but still retain the same calendar framework on which these 'predictions' are made but have moved to a new approach which no longer includes external references but hypothetical assertions such as this new one -

"At the time of the dinosaurs, Earth completed one rotation in about 23 hours," says MacMillan, who is a member of the VLBI team at NASA Goddard. "In the year 1820, a rotation took exactly 24 hours, or 86,400 standard seconds. Since 1820, the mean solar day has increased by about 2.5 milliseconds." NASA

Most endeavors recognized as true human achievements require discipline and courage that far exceed what people carrying on with their daily lives are familiar with and none of you are made of that stuff.I look at these guys desperately chanting voodoo at the Equation of Time without knowing the one thing that is necessary - there are 1461 natural noon cycles covering 1461 twenty four hour AM/PM cycles corresponding to 4 orbital circuits of the Earth.

The reference for this is a gorgeous,gorgeous piece of astronomical interpretation where the orbital motion of the Earth places Sirius just far enough to one side of the glare of the Sun to be seen one morning -

http://danmary.org/tiki/show_image.php?id=30

Some great man realized that the year is not based on consecutive 365 days but that as Sirius gets progressively dimmer with each passing non leap year after 365 day,it returns once more to its full splendid isolation after an extra day/rotation following the fourth 365 day cycle.

You poor unfortunate people can't seem to understand that one extra day will always cover the predictions of celestial positions and astronomical events as the calendar system naturally formats observations in daily cycles where the principle proportion is 1461 rotations for 4 orbital circuits or 365 1/4 rotations for one circuit.

I have been to the Satnav forums where your type of individual is found, astronomical terms are incidental to the focus on software and hardware and about as far removed from astronomy as possible.

It just goes to show when they decided to reject the Equation of Time 100 years ago,after all,Sir Isaac 'define' absolute/relative time that way that not even the nuisances here will deal with the matter even though the wider population has been bombarded with the early 20th century wordplay that was meant to be a 'revolution' and the highest form of human reasoning.

[Bill Gill]

Well, for my first pass at the moon position I used a function,
well a set of functions, that I downloaded off of the internet.
It was based on Meeus, so it was probably pretty good. But
it didn't really matter at that time. I was just looking for the
dates of the moon phases. And that is any time within a 24 hour
period. I chose from noon to noon, because as I see it the
moon phases are a night phenomenon, not a day phenomenon. But
the Chinese calendar calculations need to be a lot more precise.
So I am revisiting the Sun Position and Moon Phase algorithms
trying to get them as close as I can without going overboard
on the programming. I figure within a minute will probably be
good enough. I don't expect that the New Moon or the Solar
Term will happen that close to midnight very often.

And that set of functions I downloaded? Since I got the book I
have been going back and reworking a number of them. They
may have been from the book originally, but it seems that
they had been through a number of permutations between the
book and what I downloaded.

Bill

[Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway]

"Bill Gill" wrote in message news:kvnia1$92g$1...@dont-email.me...

On 8/29/2013 6:00 AM, Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway wrote:
>
>
> "Bill Gill" wrote in message news:kvm8qr$ktc$1...@dont-email.me...
>
> On 8/28/2013 2:33 PM, Dr J R Stockton wrote:
>> In sci.astro.amateur message <kvj21p$n4u$1...@dont-email.me>, Tue, 27 Aug
>> 2013 15:26:35, Bill Gill <bill...@cox.net> posted:
>>
>>> Ok, I have been fussing around with this for several days and
>>> can't seem to find a resolution to my problem. I am using
>>> Meeus' Solar Position algorithm from Chapter 25 of his
>>> book "Astronomical Algorithms". I am also using his
>>> Equinoxes and Solstices algorithm from Chapter 27. They
>>> give different times for the Equinoxes and Solstices.
>>>
>>> The results for the March Equinox of 2013 from the 2 algorithms are:
>>> Equinoxes and Solstices: 3/20/2013 11:01:51 AM
>>> Solar Position: 3/20/2013 10:56:38 AM
>>>
>>> I have been beating my brains out trying to reconcile the 2
>>> calculations and can't find any errors in my programs.
>>
>>
>> Are you sure that the arithmetic engine that you are using is of
>> sufficient accuracy?
>>
>> For example, two expressions that give matching good results with IEEE
>> Doubles might give differently bad results with IEEE Singles.
>>
>>
>
> I'm using Doubles from Microsoft Visual Basic. They say the
> range is:
>

> -1.79769313486231570E+308 through -4.94065645841246544E-324 � for
> negative values;
>
> 4.94065645841246544E-324 through 1.79769313486231570E+308 � for positive

========================================================
Sorry, but for anyone to help you you'll have to be more explicit
than "looking at" equinoxes and solstices.
I had presumed, perhaps wrongly, that you wanted the TIME of the
equinox or solstice with the time of year being measured as the
position of the Earth in its orbit relative to the "fixed" stars.
If that is not the case then I confess I have no idea what you are
attempting other than a mathematical exercise for the fun of it.
If it is the case then not knowing perihelion is like not knowing
the freezing point of water in degrees Celsius, which does vary
with atmospheric pressure and not much use for calibrating a
thermometer. Without perihelion you have no starting point and
neither does Meeus. Solstice is 12 to 15 days before perihelion.
Equinox, three months later, is before the Earth has moved
through 90 degrees relative to the stars, due to the eccentricity
of its orbit.
In this gross exaggeration,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kepler-first-law.svg
the planet has reached equinox one month after perihelion/solstice,
not three.
The tilt of the Earth's axis determines solstice, whereas equinox is
determined by the eccentricity of the orbit and the position of solstice
relative to perihelion.

[Bill Gill]

I thought I was pretty clear. I need to know the date and time
of the 24 Chinese Solar Terms. Four of those are the same as
the Solstices and Equinoxes. Where they occur with respect to
perihelion is of no interest to me. Meeus gives algorithms for
all of the factors that are of interest in working with calendars.
How he arrived at those algorithms is a deep mystery to me, and
I really don't need to know how. I have a general understanding
of Newton's laws so I get the general idea, but the actual
calculations are of course very complex. I do have a BS in
Physics, but unless you are planning to work with orbital
mechanics you don't get very deep into that sort of thing.

Actually, calibrating a thermometer with a well stirred ice
and water mix is plenty good enough for most people. It will
get you within a fraction of a degree under all but the most
extreme conditions. To be really accurate of course you need
to have a triple point cell, which is not real easy for most
people to acquire.

Bill

[palsing]

On Thursday, August 29, 2013 7:16:41 PM UTC-7, Bill Gill wrote:


> I thought I was pretty clear. I need to know the date and time
>
> of the 24 Chinese Solar Terms. Four of those are the same as
>
> the Solstices and Equinoxes. Where they occur with respect to
>
> perihelion is of no interest to me. Meeus gives algorithms for
>
> all of the factors that are of interest in working with calendars.
>
> How he arrived at those algorithms is a deep mystery to me, and
>
> I really don't need to know how. I have a general understanding
>
> of Newton's laws so I get the general idea, but the actual
>
> calculations are of course very complex. I do have a BS in
>
> Physics, but unless you are planning to work with orbital
>
> mechanics you don't get very deep into that sort of thing.
>
>
>
> Actually, calibrating a thermometer with a well stirred ice
>
> and water mix is plenty good enough for most people. It will
>
> get you within a fraction of a degree under all but the most
>
> extreme conditions. To be really accurate of course you need
>
> to have a triple point cell, which is not real easy for most
>
> people to acquire.
>
>
>
> Bill

Here are the dates, but not the times...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_term

... I'm not sure just how important the time would be, since one of the notes says "Date can vary within a ±1 day range." Unless, of course, you want the exact time for a particular year...

\Paul A

[Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway]

"Bill Gill" wrote in message news:kvova5$iqs$1...@dont-email.me...

On 8/30/2013 2:28 AM, Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway wrote:
>
>
> "Bill Gill" wrote in message news:kvnia1$92g$1...@dont-email.me...
>
> On 8/29/2013 6:00 AM, Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway wrote:
>>
>>
>> "Bill Gill" wrote in message news:kvm8qr$ktc$1...@dont-email.me...
>>
>> On 8/28/2013 2:33 PM, Dr J R Stockton wrote:
>>> In sci.astro.amateur message <kvj21p$n4u$1...@dont-email.me>, Tue, 27 Aug
>>> 2013 15:26:35, Bill Gill <bill...@cox.net> posted:
>>>
>>>> Ok, I have been fussing around with this for several days and
>>>> can't seem to find a resolution to my problem. I am using
>>>> Meeus' Solar Position algorithm from Chapter 25 of his
>>>> book "Astronomical Algorithms". I am also using his
>>>> Equinoxes and Solstices algorithm from Chapter 27. They
>>>> give different times for the Equinoxes and Solstices.
>>>>
>>>> The results for the March Equinox of 2013 from the 2 algorithms are:
>>>> Equinoxes and Solstices: 3/20/2013 11:01:51 AM
>>>> Solar Position: 3/20/2013 10:56:38 AM
>>>>
>>>> I have been beating my brains out trying to reconcile the 2
>>>> calculations and can't find any errors in my programs.
>>>
>>>
>>> Are you sure that the arithmetic engine that you are using is of
>>> sufficient accuracy?
>>>
>>> For example, two expressions that give matching good results with IEEE
>>> Doubles might give differently bad results with IEEE Singles.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> I'm using Doubles from Microsoft Visual Basic. They say the
>> range is:
>>

>> -1.79769313486231570E+308 through -4.94065645841246544E-324 † for
>> negative values;
>>
>> 4.94065645841246544E-324 through 1.79769313486231570E+308 † for positive

====================================
In the words of Ned Flanders, Okley dokely.
Keep in mind that the 24 Chinese Solar terms are 15 degrees apart
and therefore inaccurate but plenty good enough for most people.
Hence there is no point in knowing them precisely in a Gregorian
leap year, which is also inaccurate but plenty good enough for
most people.
The carpenter that cut a length of wood to precisely 11" within
1/64" was extremely precise but as the drawing called for a piece
12" +/- 1/2" he was not accurate and ended up 1/2" too short.
You appear to have encountered a similar problem by using
extreme precision to meet an approximate requirement. Good
luck with your endeavours.

[Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway]

"palsing" wrote in message
news:8e65bfc4-4755-4a83...@googlegroups.com...

notes says "Date can vary within a ą1 day range." Unless, of course, you

want the exact time for a particular year...

\Paul A

==============================================
Quite so, palsing. As usual the problem boils down to the
inexactitude of the integer number of days in a year and
different leap days in different cultures. No doubt Kelleher
will have a ball by insisting on his 365/366 four year calendar
as the only one.

[oriel36]

On Friday, August 30, 2013 3:16:41 AM UTC+1, Bill Gill wrote:

I have a general understanding
>
> of Newton's laws so I get the general idea, but the actual
>
> calculations are of course very complex. I do have a BS in
>
> Physics, but unless you are planning to work with orbital
>
> mechanics you don't get very deep into that sort of thing.
>
>

> Bill


That sort of thing indeed !,you are the new breed of homocentrist that is even more adrift of astronomical principles than the previous crowd who couldn't make sense of the Equation of Time and created a cult around Sir Isaac silly expression of the difference between the varying length of the natural noon cycle from the average 24 hour cycle by calling the EoT absolute/relative time.

The empirical drones and nuisances positively refuse to look at Sir's Isaac statement as they are then bound to consider what absolute/relative time refers to and it is nothing like the conjured story of the early 20th century but it sure has a great deal to do with genuine astronomy as opposed to the 'predictive' convenience of the celestial sphere system that the wider population hears of as the 'laws of gravity'.That is what you have a degree in - a false system that vaguely points in the direction of the calendar based Ra/Dec system and tries to mesh it with the behavior of objects at a human level.

What astronomer cannot feel the pride in understanding orbital dynamics which puts Sirius far enough to one side of the Sun so that its light can be seen as the only star other than our own central Sun -

http://danmary.org/tiki/show_image.php?id=30

It is that observation which dictates the number of times the Earth turns for each time it orbits the Sun so when the star doesn't appear after the 4th cycle of 365 days,the observation translates into the fact that the Earth turns 1461 times in 4 years that can be understood in its raw astronomical terms as 365 1/4 rotation to one orbital circuit or the convenience of the 365/366 day format.It has nothing whatsoever to do with what humans like or do not like,days/years transfer into rotations/orbital circuits despite the disgraceful belief among empirical drones that there are 1465 rotations in 1461 days.

Orbital mechanics ! - it is the reason why students are not taught that all locations on the surface of the planet experience a single day/night cycle aside from the daily day/night cycle and its rotational cause while the North/South poles represent locations on the surface which allow a window into the orbital day/night cycle and its cause.It is that orbital day/night cycle which causes the natural noon cycles to vary.

[martin_pier...@yahoo.co.uk]

Amazingly some people are STILL being suckered in to replying to Oriel.

Oriel is just a bot - with just a tiny amount of human intervention. Indeed the university dept involved has, I understand, open admitted this quite recently.

Please don't play "his" or their game any longer - unless of course you want to look stupid!