Re: computational amateur astronomy?
- From: pausch@xxxxxxx (Paul Schlyter)
- Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 21:14:32 GMT
In article <42c2f0d6$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Jonathan Bartlett <johnnyb@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I've been thinking about getting started in amateur astronomy. However,
> I'm from the computer science area, and as such I love
> computing/calculation. I've been disappointed because most amateur
> astronomy books just focus on looking at things. I would also enjoy
> calculating things. Is it possible with amateur equipment to make any
> sort of meaningful calculations? Distances, speeds, anything? I
> imagine so, since Kepler and Newton probably had less equipment and was
> able to determine the laws of planetary motion. Anyway, I was curious
> if anyone knew of a good beginner book or website that shows how to
> re-make such classic calculations or do any other kind of computational
> astronomy.
Modern personal computers are very capable machines! So you can definitely
do meaningful calculations with them -- if you either have the patience
to write your own software to do the calculations you're interested in,
or to locate some software which does the calculation for you.
I started myself with astronomical computing on personal computers around
1980 (actually a few years earlier if you include programmable calculators).
Back in 1980 things were very different. Personal computers did cost an
arm and a leg almost, and yet they could perform almost nothing compared
to today's cheap and fast computers. Yet they were possible to use. As
an example, I wrote a program back in 1983 which performed one very specific
task: it computes sun/moon-rise/set and twilight for each day of a calendar
year, as seen from one location of your choice. The execution time of
that program has steadily decreased as follows:
1983: 1 hour (2 MHz Z-80, Apple II SoftCard CP/M)
1984: 20 min (6 MHz Z-80, Apple II Appli-Card CP/M)
1986: 10 min (5 MHz 8088+8087, MS-DOS)
1988: 1.5 min (16 MHz 80386+387, MS-DOS)
1994: 20 sec (66 MHz 80486, MS-DOS)
1998: 3 sec (300 MHz Pentium-II, Win-98)
2002: 0.5 sec (1.8 GHz Pentium-IV, Win-XP)
Back then it was also hard to find information on how to compute
these things - one had to gain access to a library with professional
astronomical journals, plus the time to locate the interesting articles.
Then a guy named Jean Meeus in Belgium started to write articles for
his association "Vereniging der Steerrenkunde" in Belgium. A number
of these artices was collected in a book. Willmann-Bell in the US
got interested in them and has since then published a number of
books by Jean Meeus -- they're all highly recommended for anyone
seriously interested in astronomical computing.
Finally, some links to get you started:
My own web pages:
http://stjarnhimlen.se/comp/ppcomp.html (note the links at the end!)
http://stjarnhimlen.se/comp/tutorial.html
Willmann-Bell:
http://www.willbell.com/math/index.htm
Explanatory Supplement to the Astronomical Almanac -- not a beginner's
book, but a definite reference if you get seriously interested in this.
http://tinyurl.com/acea6
Astronomical Almanac - published yearly. Get it for at least one
year, and use as a reference against which to compare your own
calculations.
http://tinyurl.com/8vn6g
Happy computing!
--
----------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Schlyter, Grev Turegatan 40, SE-114 38 Stockholm, SWEDEN
e-mail: pausch at stockholm dot bostream dot se
WWW: http://stjarnhimlen.se/
.
- References:
- computational amateur astronomy?
- From: Jonathan Bartlett
- computational amateur astronomy?
- Prev by Date: Re: Finder chart
- Next by Date: Re: computational amateur astronomy?
- Previous by thread: Re: computational amateur astronomy?
- Next by thread: Re: computational amateur astronomy?
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
|
