fred@inuxe.UUCP (Fred Mendenhall) (01/02/86)
*** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MESSAGE *** planet2.c is the c source for a program that determines the Right Ascension and Declination for the Sun and the planets Mercury through Neptune as views from the center of the Earth given the time, date and time zone correction for UT. The results are for the epoch of the date, hence if the date is Jan 1, 1985 the coordinates are for epoch 1985.0 and not for the standard 1950 or 2000 dates of most star atlases. Accuracy? No promises, but the results should be accurate to .01 Degrees for Nep and Ura and to tens of arc seconds for the rest of the planets. ( I've only checked the program against two dates from a set of 1981 and 1983 Astronomy magazines) These results are not good enough to predict occultations but should be good enough to use for finding the planets using the setting circles on a telescope. The effects of nutation, aberration and parallax are not considered. This program runs on our VAX's 11/780's under UNIX system V. Clear Skies, inuxe!fred