B. T. Raven wrote on 19-05-07 14:26:
i)
It's obvious that sunrise-sunset times are dependent on the observer's
longitude and (to a smaller degree) latitude but is the same true (to
any degree)of the times of phases of the moon? There is a two minute
discrepancy between the times reported by the Naval Observatory and by
emacs 21.3
Can this be explained by lat. - long. differences among the observers?
I understood that phases should be dependent only on the relative
positions of the centers of the sun, earth, and moon. My settings are:
(setq calendar-latitude 45)
(setq calendar-longitude -93)
ii) Astronomy question
In the context of describing a storm and catastrophic flooding of the
North Sea coast, an English medieval chronicler says that Dec. 26,
1287 (Julian, or 1-2-1288 Gregorian) is the ninth (day of the) (i.e.
two days +/- after first quarter). Emacs says it's the 13th (almost
full). I was under the impression that celestial positions could be
extrapolated many millenia backwards with great accuracy. Without
instruments it's hard to precisely determine new and full moon but
easy to tell the difference between quarter and full. Does any of you
have any ideas to explain this discrepancy?
i. yes it could be explained by diff. in lat./long. I don't know
which position either of them uses to calculate the times, nor
the algorithms used.
ii. how is Dec. 26, 1287 as you say 1-2-1288 Gregorian? If it's anything,
it's 6 jan. 1288 'gregorian' (+11 days).
bjd