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Archive-name: space/math |
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Last-modified: $Date: 93/04/01 14:39:12 $ |
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References that have been frequently recommended on the net are: |
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"Fundamentals of Astrodynamics" Roger Bate, Donald Mueller, Jerry White |
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1971, Dover Press, 455pp $8.95 (US) (paperback). ISBN 0-486-60061-0 |
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NASA Spaceflight handbooks (dating from the 1960s) |
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SP-33 Orbital Flight Handbook (3 parts) |
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SP-34 Lunar Flight Handbook (3 parts) |
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SP-35 Planetary Flight Handbook (9 parts) |
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These might be found in university aeronautics libraries or ordered |
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through the US Govt. Printing Office (GPO), although more |
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information would probably be needed to order them. |
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M. A. Minovitch, _The Determination and Characteristics of Ballistic |
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Interplanetary Trajectories Under the Influence of Multiple Planetary |
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Attractions_, Technical Report 32-464, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, |
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Pasadena, Calif., Oct, 1963. |
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The title says all. Starts of with the basics and works its way up. |
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Very good. It has a companion article: |
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M. Minovitch, _Utilizing Large Planetary Perubations for the Design of |
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Deep-Space Solar-Probe and Out of Ecliptic Trajectories_, Technical |
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Report 32-849, JPL, Pasadena, Calif., 1965. |
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You need to read the first one first to realy understand this one. |
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It does include a _short_ summary if you can only find the second. |
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Contact JPL for availability of these reports. |
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"Spacecraft Attitude Dynamics", Peter C. Hughes 1986, John Wiley and |
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Sons. |
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"Celestial Mechanics: a computational guide for the practitioner", |
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Lawrence G. Taff, (Wiley-Interscience, New York, 1985). |
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Starts with the basics (2-body problem, coordinates) and works up to |
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orbit determinations, perturbations, and differential corrections. |
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Taff also briefly discusses stellar dynamics including a short |
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discussion of n-body problems. |
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More net references: |
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Van Flandern & Pullinen, _Low-Precision Formulae for Planetary |
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Positions_, Astrophysical J. Supp Series, 41:391-411, 1979. Look in an |
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astronomy or physics library for this; also said to be available from |
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Willmann-Bell. |
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Gives series to compute positions accurate to 1 arc minute for a |
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period + or - 300 years from now. Pluto is included but stated to |
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have an accuracy of only about 15 arc minutes. |
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_Multiyear Interactive Computer Almanac_ (MICA), produced by the US |
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Naval Observatory. Valid for years 1990-1999. $55 ($80 outside US). |
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Available for IBM (order #PB93-500163HDV) or Macintosh (order |
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#PB93-500155HDV). From the NTIS sales desk, (703)-487-4650. I believe |
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this is intended to replace the USNO's Interactive Computer Ephemeris. |
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_Interactive Computer Ephemeris_ (from the US Naval Observatory) |
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distributed on IBM-PC floppy disks, $35 (Willmann-Bell). Covers dates |
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"Planetary Programs and Tables from -4000 to +2800", Bretagnon & Simon |
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1986, Willmann-Bell. |
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Floppy disks available separately. |
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"Fundamentals of Celestial Mechanics" (2nd ed), J.M.A. Danby 1988, |
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Willmann-Bell. |
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A good fundamental text. Includes BASIC programs; a companion set of |
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floppy disks is available separately. |
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"Astronomical Formulae for Calculators" (4th ed.), J. Meeus 1988, |
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Willmann-Bell. |
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"Astronomical Algorithms", J. Meeus 1991, Willmann-Bell. |
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If you actively use one of the editions of "Astronomical Formulae |
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for Calculators", you will want to replace it with "Astronomical |
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Algorithms". This new book is more oriented towards computers than |
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calculators and contains formulae for planetary motion based on |
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modern work by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the U.S. Naval |
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Observatory, and the Bureau des Longitudes. The previous books were |
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all based on formulae mostly developed in the last century. |
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Algorithms available separately on diskette. |
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"Practical Astronomy with your Calculator" (3rd ed.), P. Duffett-Smith |
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1988, Cambridge University Press. |
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"Orbits for Amateurs with a Microcomputer", D. Tattersfield 1984, |
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Stanley Thornes, Ltd. |
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Includes example programs in BASIC. |
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"Orbits for Amateurs II", D. Tattersfield 1987, John Wiley & Sons. |
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"Astronomy / Scientific Software" - catalog of shareware, public domain, |
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and commercial software for IBM and other PCs. Astronomy software |
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includes planetarium simulations, ephemeris generators, astronomical |
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databases, solar system simulations, satellite tracking programs, |
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celestial mechanics simulators, and more. |
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Andromeda Software, Inc. |
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P.O. Box 605 |
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Amherst, NY 14226-0605 |
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Astrogeologist Gene Shoemaker proposes the following formula, based on |
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studies of cratering caused by nuclear tests. |
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D = S S c K W : crater diameter in km |
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S = (g /g ) : gravity correction factor for bodies other than |
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g e t Earth, where g = 9.8 m/s^2 and g is the surface |
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e t |
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gravity of the target body. This scaling is |
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cited for lunar craters and may hold true for |
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other bodies. |
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S = (p / p ) : correction factor for target density p , |
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p a t t |
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p = 1.8 g/cm^3 for alluvium at the Jangle U |
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a |
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crater site, p = 2.6 g/cm^3 for average |
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rock on the continental shields. |
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C : crater collapse factor, 1 for craters <= 3 km |
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in diameter, 1.3 for larger craters (on Earth). |
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K : .074 km / (kT TNT equivalent) |
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n empirically determined from the Jangle U |
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nuclear test crater. |
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W = pi * d * delta * V / (12 * 4.185 * 10 ) |
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: projectile kinetic energy in kT TNT equivalent |
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given diameter d, velocity v, and projectile |
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density delta in CGS units. delta of around 3 |
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g/cm^3 is fairly good for an asteroid. |
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An RMS velocity of V = 20 km/sec may be used for Earth-crossing |
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asteroids. |
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Under these assumptions, the body which created the Barringer Meteor |
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Crater in Arizona (1.13 km diameter) would have been about 40 meters in |
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diameter. |
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More generally, one can use (after Gehrels, 1985): |
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Asteroid Number of objects Impact probability Impact energy |
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diameter (km) (impacts/year) (* 5*10^20 ergs) |
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assuming simple scaling laws. Note that 5*10^20 ergs = 13 000 tons TNT |
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equivalent, or the energy released by the Hiroshima A-bomb. |
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References: |
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Gehrels, T. 1985 Asteroids and comets. _Physics Today_ 38, 32-41. [an |
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excellent general overview of the subject for the layman] |
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Shoemaker, E.M. 1983 Asteroid and comet bombardment of the earth. _Ann. |
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Rev. Earth Planet. Sci._ 11, 461-494. [very long and fairly |
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technical but a comprehensive examination of the |
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subject] |
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Shoemaker, E.M., J.G. Williams, E.F. Helin & R.F. Wolfe 1979 |
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Earth-crossing asteroids: Orbital classes, collision rates with |
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Earth, and origin. In _Asteroids_, T. Gehrels, ed., pp. 253-282, |
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University of Arizona Press, Tucson. |
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Cunningham, C.J. 1988 _Introduction to Asteroids: The Next Frontier_ |
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(Richmond: Willman-Bell, Inc.) [covers all aspects of asteroid |
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studies and is an excellent introduction to the subject for people |
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of all experience levels. It also has a very extensive reference |
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list covering essentially all of the reference material in the |
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field.] |
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Two easy-to-find sources of map projections are the "Encyclopaedia |
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Brittanica", (particularly the older volumes) and a tutorial appearing |
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in _Graphics Gems_ (Academic Press, 1990). The latter was written with |
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simplicity of exposition and suitability of digital computation in mind |
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(spherical trig formulae also appear, as do digitally-plotted examples). |
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More than you ever cared to know about map projections is in John |
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Snyder's USGS publication "Map Projections--A Working Manual", USGS |
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Professional Paper 1395. This contains detailed descriptions of 32 |
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projections, with history, features, projection formulas (for both |
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spherical earth and ellipsoidal earth), and numerical test cases. It's a |
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neat book, all 382 pages worth. This one's $20. |
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You might also want the companion volume, by Snyder and Philip Voxland, |
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"An Album of Map Projections", USGS Professional Paper 1453. This |
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contains less detail on about 130 projections and variants. Formulas are |
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in the back, example plots in the front. $14, 250 pages. |
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You can order these 2 ways. The cheap, slow way is direct from USGS: |
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Earth Science Information Center, US Geological Survey, 507 National |
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Center, Reston, VA 22092. (800)-USA-MAPS. They can quote you a price and |
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tell you where to send your money. Expect a 6-8 week turnaround time. |
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A much faster way (about 1 week) is through Timely Discount Topos, |
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(303)-469-5022, 9769 W. 119th Drive, Suite 9, Broomfield, CO 80021. Call |
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them and tell them what you want. They'll quote a price, you send a |
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check, and then they go to USGS Customer Service Counter and pick it up |
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for you. Add about a $3-4 service charge, plus shipping. |
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A (perhaps more accessible) mapping article is: |
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R. Miller and F. Reddy, "Mapping the World in Pascal", |
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Byte V12 #14, December 1987 |
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Contains Turbo Pascal procedures for five common map projections. A |
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demo program, CARTOG.PAS, and a small (6,000 point) coastline data |
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is available on CompuServe, GEnie, and many BBSs. |
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Some references for spherical trignometry are: |
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_Spherical Astronomy_, W.M. Smart, Cambridge U. Press, 1931. |
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_A Compendium of Spherical Astronomy_, S. Newcomb, Dover, 1960. |
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_Spherical Astronomy_, R.M. Green, Cambridge U. Press., 1985 (update |
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of Smart). |
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_Spherical Astronomy_, E Woolard and G.Clemence, Academic |
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Press, 1966. |
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"Computer Simulation Using Particles" |
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R. W. Hockney and J. W. Eastwood |
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(Adam Hilger; Bristol and Philadelphia; 1988) |
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"The rapid evaluation of potential fields in particle systems", |
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L. Greengard |
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MIT Press, 1988. |
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A breakthrough O(N) simulation method. Has been parallelized. |
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L. Greengard and V. Rokhlin, "A fast algorithm for particle |
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simulations," Journal of Computational Physics, 73:325-348, 1987. |
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"An O(N) Algorithm for Three-dimensional N-body Simulations", MSEE |
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thesis, Feng Zhao, MIT AILab Technical Report 995, 1987 |
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"Galactic Dynamics" |
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J. Binney & S. Tremaine |
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(Princeton U. Press; Princeton; 1987) |
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Includes an O(N^2) FORTRAN code written by Aarseth, a pioneer in |
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the field. |
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Hierarchical (N log N) tree methods are described in these papers: |
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A. W. Appel, "An Efficient Program for Many-body Simulation", SIAM |
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Journal of Scientific and Statistical Computing, Vol. 6, p. 85, |
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Barnes & Hut, "A Hierarchical O(N log N) Force-Calculation |
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Algorithm", Nature, V324 # 6096, 4-10 Dec 1986. |
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L. Hernquist, "Hierarchical N-body Methods", Computer Physics |
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Communications, Vol. 48, p. 107, 1988. |
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If you just need to examine FITS images, use the ppm package (see the |
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comp.graphics FAQ) to convert them to your preferred format. For more |
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information on the format and other software to read and write it, see |
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the sci.astro.fits FAQ. |
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The 6th Edition of the Unix operating system came with several software |
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systems not distributed because of older media capacity limitations. |
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Included were an ephmeris, a satellite track, and speech synthesis |
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software. The ephmeris, sky(6), is available within AT&T and to sites |
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possessing a Unix source code license. The program is regarded as Unix |
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source code. Sky is <0.5MB. Send proof of source code license to |
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E. Miya |
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NASA Ames Research Center |
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Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000 |
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[email protected] |
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To generate 3D coordinates of astronomical objects, first obtain an |
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astronomical database which specifies right ascension, declination, and |
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parallax for the objects. Convert parallax into distance using the |
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formula in part 6 of the FAQ, convert RA and declination to coordinates |
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on a unit sphere (see some of the references on planetary positions and |
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spherical trignometry earlier in this section for details on this), and |
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scale this by the distance. |
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Two databases useful for this purpose are the Yale Bright Star catalog |
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(sources listed in FAQ section 3) or "The Catalogue of Stars within 25 |
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parsecs of the Sun" (in pub/SPACE/FAQ/stars.data and stars.doc on |
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ames.arc.nasa.gov). |
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NEXT: FAQ #5/15 - References on specific areas |
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