Calendrical reform

Here is a garden variety cataloguer's explanation for the calendar
system based on equable days


"The Day is the interval between two successive passages of the sun
across the meridian of any place. It is commonly computed from the
midnight passage across the inferior meridian on the opposite side of
the globe; but by astronomers from the passage at the noon following.
The Civil Day is thus twelve hours in advance of the Astronomical.

The Solar Day, which is what we always mean by this term day, is longer
by about four minutes of time than the Sidereal, or the successive
passages of a fixed star across the same meridian; for, owing to the
revolution of the earth in its orbit from west to east, the sun appears
to travel annually in a path (the ecliptic), likewise from west to
east, among the stars round the entire heavens. The belt of
constellations through which it appears to proceed is styled the
zodiac. During half the year (March to September) the ecliptic lies to
the north of the celestial equator; during the other half (September to
March) to the south. The points where ecliptic and equator intersect
are called the equinoxes. In the northern hemisphere the March equinox
(or "first point of Aries") is called the vernal equinox; the September
equinox ("first point of Libra"), the autumnal. "



http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03168a.htm


To construct a calendar system with a leap day adjustment it is
required to determine an equable 24 hour day FIRST and all explanations
in the calendar reform omit this crucial point. The 17th century
cataloguers (from which the Catholic Encyclopedia borrows its
explanation ) in formating axial rotation against the calendrical
cycle of 365.25 days provide no explanation for the origins of the
standard 24 hour day by which the annual orbit is ascertained and never
qualify that the Equation of Time principles which accurately reflect
constant axial rotation passing through Keplerian orbital motion.

The 18th century cataloguers,in their effort to fix the celestial
sphere to terrestial longitudes for navigational purposes using the
calendrical average,created a analemma fudge that wiped out Kepler's
second law as the main component of the Equation of Time by attributing
only a hemispherical axial tilt component and elliptical geometry in
order to justify a .986 degree orbital displacement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analemma

http://www.nmm.ac.uk/site/request/se.../contentId/351

It all comes down to bluffing and blustering,part of it owing to
cataloguing laziness and the other half by empirical insanity,either
way,tying the Earth's motions,both axial and orbital,to a homogenous
calendrical 4 year and 1 day average is an incredibly useless
astronomical maneuver for although you can make the thing fit
uncomfortably for terrestial longitudes it is really dumb to imagine it
reflects the relationship between axial and orbital motion.