NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: The Star of Bethlehem and Navigation
From: Bill B
Date: 2009 Jan 04, 08:14 -0500
From: Bill B
Date: 2009 Jan 04, 08:14 -0500
FER wrote
> While we worry about leap seconds once every year or two, if you want to work
> the same problem 2,000 years backward in time, you need something like three
> hours worth of leap seconds, give or take 500. In other words, we can specify
> atomic time or ephemeris time without much ambiguity and calculate most
> phenomena in the heavens, like occultations and eclipses, with great accuracy.
> Their relative timings will be accurate. But we don't know the exact local
> time when those events occurred as seen from the Earth since we don't know
> exactly how much mean time differed from "true" time back then. Was it 4:30 or
> 4:35 local apparent time? Right now, there's no way to know.
Thank you for accurate observation, also IMHO relative to the (too)
long-running thread on leap seconds and cel nav ("time" vs. body GP).
Bill B.
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
Navigation List archive: www.navlist.net
To post, email NavList@navlist.net
To , email NavList-@navlist.net
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
