From dmeadows@idirect.com Sat Dec 2 16:20:19 2000 Received: from mxu3.u.washington.edu (mxu3.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.7]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.05/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id QAA407026 for ; Sat, 2 Dec 2000 16:20:18 -0800 Received: from deimos.idirect.com (deimos.idirect.com [207.136.80.182]) by mxu3.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.02/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id QAA08945 for ; Sat, 2 Dec 2000 16:20:17 -0800 Received: from default.idirect.com (on-ham-a53-03-114.look.ca [216.154.52.242]) by deimos.idirect.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id TAA12261 for ; Sat, 2 Dec 2000 19:20:14 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <5.0.0.25.0.20001202190950.00a60e20@idirect.com> X-Sender: dmeadows@idirect.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.0 Date: Sat, 02 Dec 2000 19:14:13 -0500 To: classics@u.washington.edu From: David Meadows Subject: Astronomy programs Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Semi-curiosity question: I'm playing around with various astronomy programs in the hopes of making some of the dates I have for 'this day in ancient history' rather more 'fixed' so my workload is reduced. I'm interested primarily in moon phases, but also in eclipses, for obvious reasons. Now I've been playing with cybersky and to test it I've been using Nicias' eclipse, which, according to the first source I checked, happened on August 27, 413 B.C.. However, with cybersky, the closest thing to an eclipse which would have been visible anytime in august of 413 happened on August 13 (around sunset, which is kind of interesting). So now comes the curiosity question: when and how was the August 27 date established and would a two week difference be within some sort of margin of error? If anyone can recommend other programs of this ilk, please pass them along. .