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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: A quarter-millennium of almanacs
From: Stan K
Date: 2017 Sep 13, 22:50 -0400
From: Stan K
Date: 2017 Sep 13, 22:50 -0400
Could it have something to do with Delta-T estimates? Or, perhaps, leap-seconds? Or the possibility that nobody will be using Nautical Almanacs in 2020, so why bother publishing them?
Stan
-----Original Message-----
From: Frank Reed <NoReply_FrankReed@fer3.com>
To: slk1000 <slk1000@aol.com>
Sent: Wed, 13 Sep 2017 20:18
Subject: [NavList] A quarter-millennium of almanacs
From: Frank Reed <NoReply_FrankReed@fer3.com>
To: slk1000 <slk1000@aol.com>
Sent: Wed, 13 Sep 2017 20:18
Subject: [NavList] A quarter-millennium of almanacs
I just wanted to remind everyone that this year, 2017, is the 250th anniversary of the first official year of "The Nautical Almanac and Astronomical Ephemeris". It was ready for sale right at the beginning of the year 1767 itself. The human computers working in England were busy bees in the year 1767 and after, and it wasn't long before they were five years ahead of the calendar. It's a bit of a puzzle that you can't buy a modern Nautical Almanac for a year five years ahead of the calendar today. And I mean that: it's a puzzle! What is it about the way astronomical data in the modern Nautical Almanac is presented that is different from the way it was a century or two centuries ago that makes it more problematic to publish ahead? Why can't you buy the official Nautical Almanac for the year 2020 today?
Frank Reed
