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Meeus vs Duffett-Smith. A Difference?
I have the fourth edition of Meeus (1988?) and haven't used it for quite
awhile. I just discovered a similar book by Duffett-Smith that may pre-date Meeus. What's the difference between the two? |
#2
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Meeus vs Duffett-Smith. A Difference?
W. eWatson wrote:
I have the fourth edition of Meeus (1988?) and haven't used it for quite awhile. I just discovered a similar book by Duffett-Smith that may pre-date Meeus. What's the difference between the two? Which books precisely are you referring to? Both Meeus and Duffet-Smith did books targeted for hand calculators and more general purpose methods that are suitable for computer implementation. Duffett-Smith: - Practical Astronomy With Your Calculator - Astronomy With Your Personal Computer Meeus: - Astronomical Formulae for Calculators - Astronomical Algorithms Duffet-Smith's computer book contains a lot of BASIC program listings, which may or may not be of use to you. Meeus' book has a disk available containing the data and programs, but the methods in the book are presented in mathematical form that is not just pidgin BASIC. |
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Meeus vs Duffett-Smith. A Difference?
Greg Neill wrote:
W. eWatson wrote: I have the fourth edition of Meeus (1988?) and haven't used it for quite awhile. I just discovered a similar book by Duffett-Smith that may pre-date Meeus. What's the difference between the two? Which books precisely are you referring to? Both Meeus and Duffet-Smith did books targeted for hand calculators and more general purpose methods that are suitable for computer implementation. Duffett-Smith: - Practical Astronomy With Your Calculator - Astronomy With Your Personal Computer Meeus: - Astronomical Formulae for Calculators - Astronomical Algorithms Duffet-Smith's computer book contains a lot of BASIC program listings, which may or may not be of use to you. Meeus' book has a disk available containing the data and programs, but the methods in the book are presented in mathematical form that is not just pidgin BASIC. Practical Astronomy With Your Calculator, 2nd ed. Never heard of it until last week. I'm using a library based on their work. I suspect that it may be used because the copyright expired, or they really had no objection to others using it. Astronomical Formulae for Calculators, 4th ed. I have it. I wonder what the pros use, if not these? I suspect some of the better math libraries are involved in any case. I'll stick with Duffett-Smith. In any case, Meeus is helpful checking what I'm doing with the library and providing a reference for what's really happening. The library has virtually no introductory material. Maybe Duffett-Smith provides the background. |
#4
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Meeus vs Duffett-Smith. A Difference?
In article ,
"W. eWatson" wrote: Greg Neill wrote: snip Duffett-Smith: - Practical Astronomy With Your Calculator - Astronomy With Your Personal Computer Meeus: - Astronomical Formulae for Calculators - Astronomical Algorithms Duffet-Smith's computer book contains a lot of BASIC program listings, which may or may not be of use to you. Meeus' book has a disk available containing the data and programs, but the methods in the book are presented in mathematical form that is not just pidgin BASIC. Practical Astronomy With Your Calculator, 2nd ed. Never heard of it until last week. I'm using a library based on their work. I suspect that it may be used because the copyright expired, or they really had no objection to others using it. Astronomical Formulae for Calculators, 4th ed. I have it. That's been pretty thoroughly superseded by _Astronomical Algorithms_. Most of the material was taken up into the latter book, but updated throughout from the 1900-epoch methods to J2000-based ones, and in some areas much expanded, the _AFC_ procedure being given as a short or approximate alternative to a new one that's more elaborate but also more accurate. The high-precision planetary-position calculations in _AA_ involve dozens of periodic perturbation terms, the listing of whose coefficients for all the planets makes a forty-page appendix. I wonder what the pros use, if not these? I suspect some of the better math libraries are involved in any case. I'll stick with Duffett-Smith. In any case, Meeus is helpful checking what I'm doing with the library and providing a reference for what's really happening. The library has virtually no introductory material. Maybe Duffett-Smith provides the background. I don't have his PC book. The Calculator book does provide the rationale for most of its methods -- at least a sketch of the derivation, and helpful diagrams -- which are also well illustrated with step-by-step examples. I think it's fair to say Meeus assumes more background on the reader's part, and discusses practical considerations in more detail: under what circumstances to apply corrections or in what order, how the precision degrades with distance in time from the reference, and so on. One aspect of _PAWYC_ (I have the 3rd ed., 1988) that stands out as unique is a method it presents (beside the traditional spherical-trig formulae) that uses matrices for generalized coordinate transformations, including precession. -- Odysseus |
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