Practical astronomy with your calculator
by Peter Duffett-Smith · first published 1979
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Very curious find! I wonder what sort of calculations it's doing. Anything that would be useful to an astronomer? Or just weird bunko? Are the calculations deterministic? There's a great book called Practical Astronomy with your Calculator; I wonder what the astrological analog would be.
on “DR70 – A dedicated machine for astrologers” ↗Why is AI even needed? It’s not like the sun dances around. Could probably find enough information here [0] what is needed. [0] Practical Astronomy with your Calculator https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521356997/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_-v...
on “Heliogen, backed by Gates, says it has achieved a solar breakthrough” ↗This discrepancy with time is explained in the book the algorithm is based on (Practical Astronomy with Your Calculator, which also does a good job explaining a ton of other ideas and models in astronomical calculation). January 0th makes sense because a year starts on January 1st. You count days of the year from 1 instead…
on “Show HN: Moon Phase Algorithms for C, Lua, Awk, JavaScript, etc.” ↗…want to be. I looked into this so I could generate lunar calendars for friends. I got the phases of the moon predictions from the BSD Games program pom by Keith E. Brandt[0], which is itself based on 'Practical Astronomy with Your Calculator'[1] by Peter Duffett-Smith. Lunar eclipse predictions came from the Basic Lunar Eclipse and Phase Calculator by Xavier Jubier[2]. These work well for the near future and with a reasonable amount of precision…
on “Total Eclipse of the Moon: 2022 May 16” ↗…for which the phase of the moon has to be calculated. If -d but not -t has been specified, it will calculate the phase of the moon on that day at mid‐ night. SEE ALSO `Practical Astronomy with Your Calculator' by Duffett-Smith. FreeBSD 10.1 July 14, 2010 FreeBSD 10.1
on “Deploy based on the planet alignments” ↗…interfaced it to my VIC20. I wrote a program that showed the position of Jupiter's four large moons - Io, Europa, Callisto, and Ganymede. The calculation was based on a formula in Peter Duffet-Smith's book, "Practical Astronomy with your Calculator". They came out with a similar book after with code in BASIC, which I bought too. They were both little sprial-bound books that I have since lost thirty-plus years later on. The thermal printer was fun…
on “Tinyprinter.club” ↗After my PET 2001 I had purchased in 1977/78, I bought a Commodore Vic-20. Using the book, "Practical Astronomy with Your Calculator", I wrote a program in Vic BASIC which was the same as the PET's to identify the four most prominent moons of Jupiter based on their elliptical plane being on edge when viewed from Earth. I wanted a way…
on “Guten: A Tiny Newspaper Printer” ↗