Astronomy on the Personal Computer
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Beschreibung
It is said that a typical astronomer of the 19th century spent seven hours working at a desk for every hour spent at the telescope. That 's how long the routine analysis of data took with pencil, paper, and logarithmic tables. Thus when Wilhelm Olbers discovered the minor planet Vesta in 1807 and gathered the necessary observations, his friend Gauss needed almost 10 hours to hand calculate its orbit. That achievement astonished many less gifted astronomers of the time, who might have labored days to work out the orbit of a newfound comet. How different things are today! Gauss's method of orbit determination, presented in Chap. 11 of this book, runs to completion on a horne computer in a few seconds at most. The machine will issue its accurate results in less time than it takes to key in the observations. In this book, alandmark in the youthfulliterature of astronomical com puter algorithms, Oliver Montenbruck and Thomas Pfleger cover many topics of keen interest to the practical ob server. For me its most remarkable feature is the library of interrelated program modules, aIl elegantly written in PAS CAL. Anyone who has tried to create such modules in interpreted BASIC soon runs into trouble: too few letters for variable names, not enough signifi cant digits, and so on. These PASCAL routines are invoked one after another in coordinate transformations and calendar conversions.
This long-awaited new edition of Montenbruck and Pfleger's successful book now includes new chapters on perturbation calculations and on the calculation of physical ephemerides of the major planets and the Sun. The diskette which accompanies the book has also been completely revised. The book represents valuable reading and a practical handbook for both students of astronomy and amateurs.
Autor*in
S. Dunlop
Themen in »Astronomy on the Personal Computer«
Astrometrie Kalenderrechnung Personal Computer Perturbation calculations Planetenbahnen Sonnenfinsternis Störungsrechnung astrometry physical ephemerides planetary orbits plants solar eclipses sun time and date calculation two-body problem