Astronomy on the Personal Computer
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Beschreibung
Astronomy on the PC provides practical solutions to a variety of astronomical problems. The book includes both astronomical fundamentals and the technical know-how for an implementation of high-quality software. Efficient and precise computer programs help the user to calculate and predict
- positions of the Sun, Moon, and the planets - rising and setting times - physical ephemerides of the Sun and the major planets - positions of comets and minor planets (with perturbations) - the central line and local conditions of solar eclipses - stellar occultations - orbits in the solar system from three observations - coordinates from sky photographs
Software developers will find a comprehensive collection of efficient Pascal routines. The extensive documentation and selfcontained structure facilitate a fast and reliable development of individual programs.
The enclosed diskette contains source texts of all programs for Turbo Pascal on IBM-compatible PCs or Pure Pascal on Atari ST/TT computers. For the new edition the programs have also been made accessible using Windows. Furthermore, an input file for the OCCULT program is now included on the diskette containing the stars of the Zodiacal Catalogue by Robertson.
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 home 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, a landmark in the youthful literature of astronomical com puter algorithms, Oliver Montenbruck and Thomas Pfleger cover many topics of keen interest to the practical observer. For me its most remarkable feature is the library of interrelated program modules, all 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.
Covers many topics of interest to the practical observer Provides practical solutions to a variety of astronomical problems Programs now run under Windows Diskette contains the stars of the Zodiacal Catalogue by Robertson Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras
Autor*in
Oliver Montenbruck
Themen in »Astronomy on the Personal Computer«
Ephemeriden Kalenderrechnung Planeten Sonne Störungsrechnung Zeitrechnung Zweikörperproblem astronomy perturbation calculations physical ephemerides planets the sun time and date calculation two-body problem