Usng an Ephemers

Todd Carnes
1 lntroduction
When I rst began studyng astroogy there reay wasnt such a thng as home
computers. Yes, there were peope wth a ot of money who had them, but by
and arge the ony paces you sawcomputers was n bg schoos, bg busnesses,
etc.
How dd astroogers create charts before there were astroogy programs? The
answer - wth penc, paper and ther brans (usuay wth a tte hep from var-
ous tabes and reference books).
Im gong to show you how to make a chart - od schoo. In ths rst post were
gong to concentrate on ndng the panetery postons. As an exampe, we
use my sons brth data, because I know t s correct. I was there and tmed t
mysef.
11 September 2005 @ 12:46pm EDT (GMT-4)
Chattanooga, TN (350244N, 851835W)
Before you start, you need penc, paper and an ephemers. An ephemers
s a st of panetary postons at ether mdnght or noon each day. If you do
not aready own an ephemers, Astrodenst has 6000 years worth of ephemers
es free for the downoad from AstroDenst.
Naturay, you want to grab the e for 2005 n order to foow aong wth ths
exampe.
2 How lts Done
Step 1: Convert oca cv tme to Unversa Tme. Though not strcty cor-
rect, for our purposes Loca Tme(wth Tme Zone Correcton) = GMT = UT
w work |ust ne. (Usng the 24-hour cock w make your cacuatons
1
easer.) If you are correctng for a ocaton that s west of Greenwch, you
shoud add the tme zone correcton (n ths case 4). Otherwse, you shoud
subtract the tme zone from the brth tme.
12:46 + 04:00 = 16:46
Step 2: Now, to make future cacuatons easer, convert the brth tme to ts
decma equvaent.
DecimalHours = Hours +
Minutes
60
= 16 +
46
60
= 16 + 0.7666667
= 16.7666667
Step 3: Now, get out the ephemers page for September 2005 and ook down
the day coumn unt you nd the row for the 11th. Copy the Suns
poston onto your paper.
11 Sep 2005 @ 00:00 UT 182146
Step 4: Under that wrte down the tme for the chart that you are nterested
n creatng.
11 Sep 2005 @ 00:00 UT 182146
11 Sep 2005 @ 16:46 UT
Step 5: Fnd the Suns poston on the next day and wrte t down as we.
11 Sep 2005 @ 00:00 UT 182146
11 Sep 2005 @ 16:46 UT
12 Sep 2005 @ 00:00 UT 192007
Now you have a you need to nterpoate the Suns poston on 11 Sep
2005 @ 16:46 UT. Dont et the word nterpoate scare you. A were
reay dong s workng out a smpe proporton.
Step 6: Subtract the Suns poston on 11 Sep 2005 @ 00:00 UT from ts po-
ston on 12 Sep 2005 @ 00:00 UT to nd out how far t traveed n 24
hours.
192007
182146

005821 = 58.35
2
Step 7: Nowset up the proporton and sove for howmuch the Sun has moved
between 11 Sep @ 00:00 UT and 11 Sep @ 16:46 UT.
Let...
A =Tme Snce 00:00 UT
B = Dstance Traveed By The Sun By 16:46
C = 24 Hours
D = Suns rate of movement
Then...
A
C
=
B
D
So...
B =
A D
C
B =
16.7666667 58.35
24
B = 40.76395833
B = 4046
Step 8: Now add the Suns moton you |ust found to ts poston on 11 Sep
2005 @ 00:00. Ths s the Suns poston at the tme my son was born.
182107
004046

190232
Step 9: Repeat steps 3 through 8 for the other panets. You shoud end up
wth the foowng:
Panet Dstance / Day Interpoated Poston
005821 190232
124400 210744
015500 131220
000154 000154
001600 203311
001200 203523
000600 070112
3
3 Conclusion
Ok, but s ths good enough for actua use n astroogy?
Todays astrooger s used to usng computer programs that spt out pane-
tary postons down to the mcro-arcsecond of accuracy, but, qute franky,
f youre tryng to use postons down to ess than a mnute accuracy, you are
wastng your tme. Astronomers are constanty workng to ncrease the accu-
racy of ther ephemerdes, but there s st a ot of work to go on some of them,
especay for the Moon.
The Swss Ephemers s consdered, and rghty so, to be extremey accurate
and s used n neary a modern astroogy software for that reason. It s based
on the DE406 ephemers fromNASA s |et Propuson Laboratory. Back when the
Swss Ephemers was rst created, DE406 was the best there was. No one had
a better ephemers. In fact, DE406 s st pretty much the standard ong range
ephemers to whch a other ephemerdes are compared. However, DE406,
and by extenson Swss Ephemers, are not the most accurate ephemerdes
avaabe today. There have been many advances n the ed and even |PL has
better short range ephemerdes now.
Wth ths n mnd, et us compare our resuts to the Swss Ephemers and |PLs
new Horzons System...
Panet Our Postons Swss Ephemers Horzons
190232 190232 185256
210744 210744 194523
131220 131224 125335
000154 000133 295004
203311 203231 202942
203523 203507 203309
070112 070125 070021
Not bad at a, reay.Notce that both we and the Swss Ephemers got the Moon
wrong by 1/2 to 1 and we both got the sgn wrong for Venus, snce t was so
cose to the cusp to begn wth.
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