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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Andrés Ruiz
Date: 2015 Jun 5, 08:11 -0700
History of the Nautical Almanac
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/publications/docs/na_history.php
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1766: First edition of The Nautical Almanac and Astronomical Ephemeris appears, published by Astronomer Royal of England, with data for 1767. The book provided the information necessary for the method of lunar distances used to determine longitude.
1832: British Nautical Almanac Office is organized
1834: Greenwich Mean Time appears in the book.
1849: U.S. Nautical Almanac Office forms
1852: First edition of The American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac appears, with data for 1855. The U.S. book publishes the data using two prime meridians: one in Washington DC and one in Greenwich.
1901: The UK book adopts the astronomer Simon Newcomb's tables and constants; the U.S. follows suit a few years later.
1912: U.S. book removes data for the method of lunar distances
1912: U.S. Congress authorizes international exchange of data.
1914: The UK extracts the sections specific to marine navigation from the UKNautical Almanac and Astronomical Ephemeris and publishes them separately as the UK Nautical Almanac, Abridged for the Use of Seamen.
1916: The U.S. book includes data from France, Germany, Spain and Britain
1916: The U.S. extracts the sections specific to marine navigation from The American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac and publishes them separately as the U.S. Nautical Almanac
1919: Sun/Moon rise and set times first appear
1925: Astronomers agree to start the astronomical day at midnight to coincide with the beginning of the civil day.
1934: U.S. book provides the Greenwich Hour Angle for Sun, Moon, and planets and the Sidereal Hour Angle for the navigation stars.
1952: Washington ephemerides removed from U.S. book.
1953: Use of Greenwich Civil Time discontinued
1958: First year of the unified Nautical Almanac for use by the United States Navy and the Royal Navy.
1980s: UT replaces GMT in Nautical and Air Almanacs
1984: DE200/LE200 JPL planetary ephemerides adopted as basis
1989: Concise Sight Reduction Tables added
2003: DE405/LE405 JPL planetary ephemerides adopted as basis
and I add:
2015: DE430/LE430 JPL planetary ephemerides adopted as basis, including the latest IAU resolutions.
Once again, wikipedia is better updated: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_Propulsion_Laboratory_Development_Ephemeris
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Andrés Ruiz
Navigational Algorithms
http://sites.google.com/site/navigationalalgorithms/