ay 212: dynamical astronomy - home, information, syllabus, projects, codes, lectures

links

"We are now on the eve of the second transit of a pair, after which there will be no other till the twenty-first century of our era has dawned upon the Earth, and the June flowers are blooming in 2004. When the last transit season occured the intellectual world was awakening from the slumber of ages, and that wondrous scientific activiety which has led to our present advanced knowledge was just beginning. What will be the state of science when the next transit season arrives God only knows. Not even our children's children will live to take part in the astronomy of that day. As for ourselves, we have to make do with the present."

-William Harkness, 1882

data and resources for ay212, as of 2004

JPL's Horizons System, the source for authoritative solar system information and ephemeris. The Horizons On-Line Solar System Data and Ephemeris Computation Service provides access to key solar system data and flexible production of highly accurate ephemerides for solar system objects (163000+ asteroids and comets, 128 natural satellites, 9 planets, the Sun, L1, L2, select spacecraft and system barycenters).

Julian Date Converter, back and forth between UT and JD.

Radial velocity fitting applet, from the University of Colorado.

Minor planet information center, information about comets and asteroids

Orbit fitting from observations, from Earth, we observe the position of a body on the sky, that is, RA and DEC. Knowing the Earth's orbit (and hence our shifting vantage) allows us to transform three positional measurments of an object on the sky into a set of orbital elements.

papers

other links

all that rises must converge, a non-beatmatched selection designed to fortify consumers of the otherwise 18th century content of week one - styrofoam, sigur ros, solvent, arab strap, red stars theory, 312, stars as eyes.

home one chapter per week: chapter 1,chapter 2