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| Submitted on: 2/11/2001 7:32:34 PM
By: Jay Tanner
Level: Advanced
User Rating:
By 19 Users
Compatibility:VB 6.0
Users have accessed this code 9284 times.
| (About the author) |
| | | <BR><BR>NeoEphemerix 2001 - v1 Beta 2<BR><BR>
Written using VB 6<BR>
Requires 800x600 display or better<BR><BR>
<BR><BR>
This program is for astronomy hobbyists who want to create their own custom VB astronomical almanac program. It is a very complex program consisting hundreds of thousands of orbital computations and represents about 6 month's work so far.<BR><BR>
The program will generate high-precision ephemerides for the sun and planets from Mercury to Neptune.<BR><BR>
It has reached the beta level of functionality and I encourage any fellow astro-computationists to give it a try and offer any comments, bug reports and suggestions regarding it.<BR><BR>
Anyone who ever wanted to learn how to perform their own high-precision planetary orbit computations, may find the source code helpful, but the math required is rather advanced.<BR><BR>
A new version with even more computations is in the works. Any suggestions from users of this program will be considered in the design of future upgrades.<BR><BR>
NOTE:
Due to the enormous size of the mathematical core modules and the complexity of the computations required to get almanic-like accuracy, the program takes about 30 minutes to compile into an executable on a 200 MHz machine and will produce a finished program about 4.3 megs in size.
The visual magnitude computation of the planet Saturn will be applied to a future version, but magnitudes are computed for the other planets. The allowance for the rings contribution to its brightness hasn't been formulated yet.<BR><BR>
This version of the program does not yet specifically check to see if the date entered is in the proper range for the selected planet, so the following table is provided as a guide.<BR><BR>
<BR>
VSOP87 Heliocentric coordinates are theoretically accurate to an arcsecond or better within the following ranges:<BR>
Mercury to Mars - 2000 BC to 6000 AD<BR>
Jupiter and Saturn - 1 BC to 4000 AD<BR>
Uranus and Neptune - 6000 BC to 8000 AD<BR><BR>
To any users familiar with the astronomical algorithms of Jean Meeus and others, this program applies many of the same concepts, but at a higher level of precision not possible from the limited tables applied in the popular books on astronomical computing.<BR><BR>
It is based on a Visual BASIC implementation of the full VSOP87 theory of planetary orbits in spherical variables.<BR><BR>
Its theoretical heliocentric accuracy is to within ±1 arcsecond or better over the ranges specified for each planet in terms of dynamical time.<BR><BR>
Since the full theory is implemented, the accuracy of the orbit computations compares very favorably with the published almanacs.<BR><BR>
To achieve this level of accuracy, over 30,000 computational terms are applied to the raw, dynamical orbit computations.<BR><BR>
The computations include corrections for precession and the long-term effects of relativity on the orbits. Then corrections are applied for light-time, aberration, reduction to the standard FK5 system of coordinates and nutation.<BR><BR><BR>
FEATURES INCLUDE:<BR><BR>
Both VSOP87 heliocentric and apparent geocentric ecliptical and equatorial coordinates<BR><BR>
Ephemerides tables can be generated by the day, hour or minute<BR> and can be saved to disk as plain text files<BR><BR>
Allowance for delta-T can be applied when known.<BR>
Distances to the planets from the sun or Earth can be displayed in astronomical units, millions of kilometers or miles.<BR><BR>
Hour angles may be displayed in hours minutes and seconds, decimal hours, degrees minutes and seconds of arc or decimal degrees.<BR><BR>
Latitudes may be displayed in degrees minutes and seconds of arc or decimal degrees.<BR><BR>
A table showing the VSOP heliocentric position and geocentric ecliptical and equatorial coordinates for the sun and the eight major planets at any given moment can be displayed<BR><BR>
Basic astronomical data such as the mean and apparent obliquity of the ecliptic, mean and apparent sidereal time at Greenwich and nutation in longitude can also be computed.<BR><BR>
The program also has a stay-on-top feature that can be toggled to lock the window in front of other windows when needed.<BR><BR>
All program settings are preserved when the program terminates and are recalled the next time the program starts up.<BR>
<BR><BR>
This program is still a rough draft but functional enough to be useful.<BR><BR>
I would appreciate any feedback on user of this code who are also into astro-computing, since it would help me to improve on future implementations.
<BR><BR>
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Other 14 submission(s) by this author
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| Your Vote! |
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| Other User Comments |
2/11/2001 11:12:23 PM:Wesley
I think this code is well beyond that
of most of the code on this site..job
well done. This is an excellent
application.
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2/11/2001 11:28:44 PM:Jay
Thanks, Wesley!
Hope you can get
some use out of it.
Still have a lot
of work to do before the project is
complete, but it's off to a good
start.
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2/12/2001 12:44:27 AM:Rad-X
maaaan... you must have so much time on
your hands... you got my vote
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2/12/2001 11:34:29 AM:Jay Tanner
Not as much free time as I'd
like!
Actually I cheat. I write
programs to write the source code to
other programs for me. Saves a lot of
time.
:o)
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2/12/2001 5:02:28 PM:Chris
(I do too) Why did you have to go and
spill the beans? 5/5
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2/12/2001 7:15:07 PM:Jay Tanner
It's OK. I didn't reveal any
secrets!
It's all math beans. Scares
most people away anyway!
:o)
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2/12/2001 8:33:58 PM:Kenny Le
Man, you got my vote for Excellent.
Were you smoked any cracks while
writing this program? How long it took
you to write this program?
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2/12/2001 9:26:00 PM:Jay Tanner
Only my keyboard was
smoking!
:o)
Took about 6 months &
about 1000 revisions to get up to a
decent beta version. It's worth it.
Working on a better version.
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2/13/2001 6:30:18 PM:OMNIA
OHM!! MAN!! THIS IS VERY COOL!!
Do
DON'T HAVE NOTHING TO DO ALL TIME
YEH?
AHHEHE, it's joke..
Very GOOD
code ...
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2/14/2001 12:23:36 AM:Jay Tanner
Glad you like it!
Anyone who likes
astronomy can't be all bad!
:o)
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2/14/2001 8:40:31 AM:Nick Pateman
Hey, maybe you could release
NeoEphemerix_2001 Lite, cos I have no
idea what this does, haha, maybe I
should read now and then. Well
structured program none the less! :^)
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2/14/2001 12:50:04 PM:Jay Tanner
Hi,
Thanks for the feedback.
I
did realease it in a "lite" verson and
then someone suggested I
combine all
the planets into one program.
What
the program does is compute the
positions of the sun and
planets in
terms of standard star chart
coordinates over extended
periods of
time.
It is basically a high
precision astronomical almanac program.
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3/4/2001 3:23:41 PM:Jonathan Fors, 12 yrs old
???....I dont understand all the things
you are talking about, VSOP,
geliocentral heliolighting......
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3/20/2001 11:41:03 AM:Al Petersen
I'm very new to VB and I know it'll
take me far when I reach the level of
use that so many on this site have
already attained! Yours, in
particular, is one of those that I
would like to impliment into another
program that I'll begin writing in
maybe several months, when I've reached
a level of higher coding. I'd like you
to email me direct at:
apetersen@wi.rr.com and I'll let you
know and/or coordinate with you on my
program. Many thanks for doing the
hardest part of the program! I know
there are others out there like this,
but I don't think they have the
dedication that you have! Great job!
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12/27/2002 7:03:11 AM:
HI
This program is very Useful but
man where is the ephemerix of moon and
retrogation is calculated and not
mentioned.
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12/27/2002 7:08:06 AM:
Hi Jay
Your program does fine but
there is no calculation of moon,rising
sun's postion and the Poles of the
Earth.
Day light save time and times
in varioius regions should have a GUI
in your program.I am also making
something like this and u need to give
it a little more GUI to get the exact
time.
IF u want to conatact me
regarding this contact me at
repsor@rediffmail.com
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2/5/2003 4:09:56 AM:Gilzean
Hey guys, if your mathematics is not as
good as Jays **DONT PANIC** - just take
up a different hobby. I play darts and
in my program, you enter your score and
it takes it away from 301. If you can't
do that - **PANIC**
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2/5/2003 8:44:43 AM:
I thought I was into astromony! I mean
I can find the moon and the
constellation Orion. This code is
incredible.
But I would be interested
in seeing you programs for creating
source code!
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2/5/2003 2:41:18 PM:
I know where the moon is at, most of
the time. And the Sun when I look up
during the day. Now I can use this
program to see other things at night
with the telescope.
Good job. 5/5
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2/5/2003 5:05:09 PM:
oohhhh... sideSHHOOOWWW Bob...
5/5
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2/13/2003 4:04:14 AM:Andrew Murphy
Any updates to this programme?
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6/6/2003 4:28:25 AM:Ken
I remember looking at the first set of
programs you posted each individual
planet. From the first glance through
this seems a very excellent compilation
of those different segments. Very well
written. This program serves as
motivation to renew my astronomy
studies. Very good, thank you.
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7/14/2003 9:44:53 PM:Ruturaj
One planet is missing in your program
.... Planet-Source-Code !!!
Good
Job. There is one software called as
CyberSky. They actually animate the
planets and all. The programmer like
you , it's really worth to see it once.
Just suggestion !
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