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Re: Equinox, 2019 September
From: Paul Hirose
Date: 2019 Oct 1, 14:25 -0700
From: Paul Hirose
Date: 2019 Oct 1, 14:25 -0700
On 2019-09-27 9:46, I wrote: > > 07:50:11 ecliptic longitude = 0 Correction: it's 180° at that time. Zero would be the March equinox. Equinoxes and solstices occur when the Sun is at multiples of 90° ecliptic longitude. The 6h/18h right ascension great circle coincides with the 90°/270° ecliptic longitude circle, so either coordinate is suitable to calculate solstice times. Sun longitude increases 1 degree per day, so an equinox or solstice prediction accurate to one minute (= 1/1440 day) requires longitude accurate to about 1/1440 degree, or 2.5 arc seconds. For predictions accurate to one second, ecliptic longitude must be good to 40 mas (milli arc second). I think that's attainable even for predictions 25 years in the future. My equinox and solstice predictions for 2045: March 20 05:08:19 TAI June 20 22:34:37 TAI September 22 14:33:38 TAI December 21 11:35:50 TAI Computed with the JPL DE431 ephemeris (2013), IAU 2006 precession model, and 2000A nutation. For a check I used the DE406 ephemeris (1997), IAU 2000 precession, and 2000B nutation models. Rounded to the nearest second, the check times were identical. Time scale is TAI because delta T and leap seconds that far in the future are too unpredictable to use UT1 or UTC. The latter is always an integer number of seconds from TAI, so you could convert the times to UTC about a year in advance (when the next leap second becomes predictable).