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Re: Jupiter satellites
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2005 Apr 8, 18:34 EDT
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2005 Apr 8, 18:34 EDT
George H wrote: "In contrast, even Maskelyne's predictied times of such events were given to the nearest second of time, right back to the first Nautical almanac of 1767, though I have doubts whether his calculations were correspondingly precise." They weren't, and I think Maskelyne says so in the explanation in the back of the almanac. G. B. Airy wrote a very nice little book back in 1834 on perturbation theory and the Galilean moons of Jupiter: "Gravitation - An Elementary Explanation of the Principal Perturbations in the Solar System". This was aimed at a literate, popular audience so there are few if any equations but the explanations are still rather "intricate". There was a modern version printed in 1969 because of its possible relevance to artificial satellite orbital dynamics. Jean Meeus is a fan of it. -FER 42.0N 87.7W, or 41.4N 72.1W. www.HistoricalAtlas.com/lunars
