Lat/Long and timekeeping system for Mars

Davoud:
*Figuratively speaking. Due to macular degeneration I do not look
through telescopes any more.

Paul Schlyter:
Don't you look at the sky with your naked eyes either anymore?

I do, of course. But if you understood what MD does to vision,
especially in low-contrast lighting (and I sincerely hope that you
never understand that!) you would know why I don't spend a lot of time
gazing with my naked eye or through a telescope.

Last evening I looked at Orion's sword with my naked eyes. Invisible
with direct vision, a blur with averted vision. Polaris is invisible to
my eyes in conditions when others can easily see it. I can't see it
except under the very best seeing conditions, usually in the wee hours
of the morning.

You can use the sky itself as a sidereal clock by finding out on
which RA your local meridian is.

Been there, done that, from the mid-60's through the 80's. That sort of
exercise is a valid hobby, but it's not my hobby. I like to pretend
that I'm playing with the big boys. I know that they don't walk outside
at the Keck observatory and determine the RA of the meridian visually
and then go back in and aim their telescopes accordingly. They do what
I do: click on an object on a computer representation of the sky and
then click the "GOTO" icon. That has the advantage of being a big time
saver in my environment in which poor weather greatly constrains
observing time.

--
I agree with almost everything that you have said and almost everything that
you will say in your entire life.

usenet *at* davidillig dawt cawm

Paul Schlyter:
You can use the sky itself as a sidereal clock by finding out on
which RA your local meridian is.

When I was teaching myself to program in BASIC in the early 80's the
first useful program that I wrote was one that calculated the local
mean sidereal time (LMST) from local mean time (LMT) + geographic
coordinates. It was based on formulas from Jan Meeus and the USNO
"Astronomical Almanac." It would print a table with LMT at various
intervals over a 12-hour period in the first column and the
corresponding LMST in the right column. Fun and useful.

--
I agree with almost everything that you have said and almost everything that
you will say in your entire life.

usenet *at* davidillig dawt cawm

https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/

The timekeeping and calendar framework where Martian hours, minutes and seconds will constitute a new and unique system for the planet along with its own months and years are crucial to identify events in much the same way as our home planet.

In coming to realise the function of the Prime Meridian and its opposite longitude within the masterpiece of human timekeeping where one 24 hour day elapses into the next and one rotation follows the next within a larger framework, even without the originators knowing the dynamics behind it, those people both ancient and recent are admired and loved as they should be.

I am privileged to see this framework in my own lifetime even among those who feel nothing.

On Fri, 07 Dec 2018 11:15:41 -0500, Davoud wrote:
Davoud:
*Figuratively speaking. Due to macular degeneration I do not
look
through telescopes any more.

Paul Schlyter:
Don't you look at the sky with your naked eyes either anymore?

I do, of course. But if you understood what MD does to vision,

I looked it up on Wikipedia, but it's found under AMD = age-related
macular degeneration. Ah, those abbreviations...

especially in low-contrast lighting (and I sincerely hope that you
never understand that!) you would know why I don't spend a lot of
time
gazing with my naked eye or through a telescope.

Last evening I looked at Orion's sword with my naked eyes. Invisible
with direct vision, a blur with averted vision. Polaris is
invisible to
my eyes in conditions when others can easily see it. I can't see it
except under the very best seeing conditions, usually in the wee
hours
of the morning.

I'm sorry to hear about your eyesight problems. It seems like you
still have central vision under bright circumstances though, such as
daylight, or inside under a sufficiently bright lamp.

But the seeing must be really really bad if it visibly affects your
naked-eye views.


You can use the sky itself as a sidereal clock by finding out on
which RA your local meridian is.

Been there, done that, from the mid-60's through the 80's. That
sort of
exercise is a valid hobby, but it's not my hobby. I like to pretend
that I'm playing with the big boys. I know that they don't walk
outside
at the Keck observatory and determine the RA of the meridian
visually
and then go back in and aim their telescopes accordingly. They do
what
I do: click on an object on a computer representation of the sky and
then click the "GOTO" icon. That has the advantage of being a big
time
saver in my environment in which poor weather greatly constrains
observing time.

It's an interesting fact that modern professional astronomers rarely
know the constellations. They don't need to since they just dial in
the coordinates of the object they want to observe with their big
GOTO telescopes. Or they may not even observe themselves,
professional observers observe for them. That's rational for
optimizing the use of available observing time of course, but it
certainly make you lose contact with the skies. It's like if a
professional geographer didn't know where Switzerland or China or USA
were situated without looking them up on a map, and if he wanted to
go there, he just dialed in the geographical coordinates on the GPS
of his self-driving car or self-flying plane and then let it take him
there.

Astronomy and timekeeping are two areas where there are no experts unlike the medical profession or indeed any other profession where people can pride themselves at being at the top of their game. Looking around here, there isn't a chance anyone is up to the formation of a similar masterpiece which constitutes the Earth's timekeeping overlaid on the planet's rotational characteristics and orbital period.

Were the Earth's proportion of rotations to orbital circuits 365 3/4 to one orbital circuit, the correction would be based on the first integer of days to orbital circuits . This would mean, using the current system, 3 years with a February 29th and one year of February 28th.

365 * 4 = 1460

3/4 * 4 = 3

Such a system would require 3 additional leap days or one year of 365 days/rotations and 3 years of 366 days/rotations to keep the system ticking over as the present 365 1/4 rotations/days do as - 1463 days/rotations divided by 4 years/orbital circuits = 365.75 rotations per orbital circuit.

The Martian system requires its own equivalent of the 24 hour day in order to mesh it with the calendar cycle and orbital period. So what if it is not celebrated or ignored, I haven't seen anyone yet who appreciates the masterpiece we inherited from so many traditions over so many centuries.

Gerald Kelleher wrote:
Astronomy and timekeeping are two areas where there are no experts unlike
the medical profession or indeed any other profession where people can
pride themselves at being at the top of their game. Looking around here,
there isn't a chance anyone is up to the formation of a similar
masterpiece which constitutes the Earth's timekeeping overlaid on the
planet's rotational characteristics and orbital period.

Were the Earth's proportion of rotations to orbital circuits 365 3/4 to
one orbital circuit, the correction would be based on the first integer
of days to orbital circuits . This would mean, using the current system,
3 years with a February 29th and one year of February 28th.

365 * 4 = 1460

3/4 * 4 = 3

Such a system would require 3 additional leap days or one year of 365
days/rotations and 3 years of 366 days/rotations to keep the system
ticking over as the present 365 1/4 rotations/days do as - 1463
days/rotations divided by 4 years/orbital circuits = 365.75 rotations per orbital circuit.

The Martian system requires its own equivalent of the 24 hour day in
order to mesh it with the calendar cycle and orbital period. So what if
it is not celebrated or ignored, I haven't seen anyone yet who
appreciates the masterpiece we inherited from so many traditions over so many centuries.














Kurt Vonnegut had a Martian calendar in 1959.
The Martian year was divided into twenty-one months, twelve with thirty
days, and nine with thirty-one. These months were named January, February,
March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November,
December, Winston, Niles, Rumfoord, Kazak, Newport, Chrono, Synclastic,
Infundibulum, and Salo.
Mnemonically:
Thirty days have Salo, Niles, June, and September,
Winston, Chrono, Kazak, and November,
April, Rumfoord, Newport, and Infundibulum,
Vonnegut assumed a Martian year of 669 days, but then accidentally included
one 30-day month too few, since his year has only 639 days.

It took the academic Brits over 150 years to accept the additional and necessary calendar correction over and above the leap day correction that the Church instituted in 1582. It is why I place little stock in the present adherents to Royal Society ideologies which sprung up during that period even if the rest of the world seems taken with what is effectively a clockwork subculture. Nothing in this thread which affirms an original and unique framework for Mars that will keep timekeeping to a close proximity to its daily and annual cycles. I wish it was stubbornness for good reason but it is pure unadulterated brutishness.

For people who are supposed to elevate logic and mathematical reasoning to a ridiculous level, the inability to affirm the 1461 days/rotations within the confines of 4 orbital circuits or the insistence in 366 1/4 rotations per orbital circuits obscures the masterpiece that is planetary timekeeping. This is as far as it goes when somebody does not have the integrity to affirm what is correct.

On Sat, 8 Dec 2018 19:41:10 -0000 (UTC), Mike Collins
wrote:
Kurt Vonnegut had a Martian calendar in 1959.
The Martian year was divided into twenty-one months, twelve with
thirty
days, and nine with thirty-one. These months were named January,
February,
March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November,
December, Winston, Niles, Rumfoord, Kazak, Newport, Chrono,
Synclastic,
Infundibulum, and Salo.
Mnemonically:
Thirty days have Salo, Niles, June, and September,
Winston, Chrono, Kazak, and November,
April, Rumfoord, Newport, and Infundibulum,
Vonnegut assumed a Martian year of 669 days, but then accidentally
included
one 30-day month too few, since his year has only 639 days.

A snflar calendar on Jupiter would have to have about 300 months of
about 30 days each. Perhaps we should refrain from trying to name
these months and just number them instead? Just like we've done with
the dates. The ancient Roman's also named the dates. Remember the
Ides of March?

The sheer brutishness in great and small details among contemporaries against the pure style of so many traditions, some ancient, that go into the calendar cycle, even why January precedes March -

http://www.webexhibits.org/calendars...-Plutarch.html

On Sat, 08 Dec 2018 23:03:38 +0100, Paul Schlyter
wrote:

A snflar calendar on Jupiter would have to have about 300 months of
about 30 days each. Perhaps we should refrain from trying to name
these months and just number them instead?

Or maybe use something like stardates. A year with as many decimal
places as make sense given the length of that year.