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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Interstellar distance
From: Bill B
Date: 2005 Sep 12, 14:46 -0500
From: Bill B
Date: 2005 Sep 12, 14:46 -0500
> Bill has offered some code to do the job, but perhaps Mike wishes to > understand the problem and how to solve it, rather than paste in another's > code. > > My first word of advice, to Mike and to many other listmembers, is to > acquire a copy of "Astronomical Algorithms", by Jean Meeus. George Thanks for the thorough coverage, and the correct spelling of Meeus. My spreadsheet did not attempt to deal with Sun or moon angular separation from bodies. I tended to use the moon and Franks lunars to determine sun/moon, moon/star distances. Not yet good enough to do Sun/star shots ;-) Therefore, your latest posting was of great interest to me, and starts to give me a handle on dealing with the Sun and moon separation angles. Thanks again. I did send along some of the background used in constructing the spreadsheet to Mike et al, which included Meeus formulas, as well as text captures of postings by you and Frank some time back on the subject including formulas. As you have pointed out, there are several ways to skin that cat, and my spreadsheet addresses only one of them. Bill