Next message: Frank R: "Re: Benetnasch and Alkaid revisited"
George H wrote:
"In contrast, even Maskelyne's predictied times of such
events were given to the nearest second of time, right back to the first
Nautical almanac of 1767, though I have doubts whether his calculations
were correspondingly precise."
They weren't, and I think Maskelyne says so in the explanation in the back
of the almanac.
G. B. Airy wrote a very nice little book back in 1834 on perturbation theory
and the Galilean moons of Jupiter: "Gravitation - An Elementary Explanation
of the Principal Perturbations in the Solar System". This was aimed at a
literate, popular audience so there are few if any equations but the explanations
are still rather "intricate". There was a modern version printed in 1969
because of its possible relevance to artificial satellite orbital dynamics. Jean
Meeus is a fan of it.
-FER
42.0N 87.7W, or 41.4N 72.1W.
www.HistoricalAtlas.com/lunars
