From nauplion@charm.net Sat Dec 2 16:29:43 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 QAA367962 for ; Sat, 2 Dec 2000 16:29:42 -0800 Received: from fellspt.charm.net (root@fellspt.charm.net [199.0.70.29]) by mxu3.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.02/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id QAA09609 for ; Sat, 2 Dec 2000 16:29:41 -0800 Received: from charm.net (coretel-116-108.charm.net [209.143.116.108]) by fellspt.charm.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id TAA14902 for ; Sat, 2 Dec 2000 19:29:33 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <3A29929D.6020A93F@charm.net> Date: Sat, 02 Dec 2000 19:24:01 -0500 From: Diana Wright X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en]C-DIAL (Win95; U) X-Accept-Language: en,el,tr MIME-Version: 1.0 To: classics@u.washington.edu Subject: Re: Astronomy programs References: <5.0.0.25.0.20001202190950.00a60e20@idirect.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit David Meadows wrote: > 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. What programs are you using? Several of my documents use "the next new moon" to call a Venetian Senate meeting, schedule the sailing for the Ottoman fleet, etc. I have been laboriously calculating days by hand, working from the one dated new moon I found. DW .