I want to try my hand at writing some (Linux Java) satellite prediction software, with an eye towards telescope control once the bugs start to get threshed out. I'm not afraid of the mathematics as I used to do naked-eye VSO in my teens back in the early 80s, but back then I was only armed with Duffett-Smith's "Practical Astronomy with Your Calculator" - and didn't have a PC to hand when he released the "With Your Personal Computer" version of the book. Now that I am getting back into the subject, and have oodles of CPU at my disposal, given that what I am asking requires a high degree of precision, I was wondering: 1) Can someone please tell me what the favoured reference manual for satellite prediction algorithms is nowadays? I see that Jean Meeus has one "Astronomical Algorithms" book, and of course there is always Duffett-Smith, but I was wondering what people actually *use* ? ...and on a sideways note: 2) When's Mir currently due to decay? Thanks in advance, if you can please help. - alec http://www.crypto.dircon.co.uk/ ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jan 07 2000 - 15:59:21 PST