Re: Phase of the Moon

[Richard "Miserable Cloudy Day for the Partial Eclipse. FOO!!!" Mlynarik <mly>]

    Date: 30 May 1984  12:28 EDT (Wed)
    From: "David H. Kaufman" <SR.KAUFMAN@MIT-SPEECH>
    To:   bug-emacs@oz, bug-teco@oz
    cc:   sr.ehpyc@MIT-SPEECH, sr.kaufman@MIT-SPEECH
    Subject: Phase of the Moon

    Wednesday, May 30,,1984

    NM+21H.21M.31S.

    According to the Miniature Almanac in today's Boston Globe (page 55),
    the New Moon is at 12:49 PM today (that is, in about 1/2 hour), not 21
    hours ago.

    DHK

    P.S. If anybody has a *working* algorithm for finding the phase of the
    moon, I'd love to see it.

There are good algorithms (though getting a *little* dated now -- but nothing
that can't be fixed by looking up newer orbital elements in an ephemeris)
in mit-xx:<mdllib>celest.mud.
I started translating these into zetalisp at one stage, and will probably finish
doing that sometime later this month, now that I know that somebody else
realizes what a fantastically important undertaking that is.
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