I am doing research for the period of 1446 BCE - 960 BCE. I have created a timeline of events and now I am attempting to add the moon phases to the timeline. I just last week purchased the Starry Night Pro Plus 8. I had been using the free Stellarium software up until this download. What I am puzzled by is that the moon phases do not match at all. Some are off by days, and others are off by hours. For instance, on April 27, 1446 BCE in Stellarium the 1st quarter is at 4/27 12:17:3. In Starry night is shows 4/27 10:12PM (1447?). I love the ease of clicking on "show events" in Starry night, but the inaccuracy will have me using Stellarium to complete this portion of the project. Is there something that can be done to correct this discrepancy? In fact, I could not even find the Full Moon on March 7, 1446 in Starry Night. In Stellarium it is shown to be March 7, 1446 1:42:35. And is there some way to add the seconds to the time? I have found that the seconds are important information to verify calculations. Thank you. - Lisa
5 comments
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Keiron Smith Lisa,
When exploring archeoastronomy it is advisable to consult multiple reputable resources to cross-reference data points.
Check with NASA as well. And, any other astronomy software you can access.
What decides that Stellarium is accurate when differing from Starry Night?
Regarding seconds, I do not understand the question. Starry Night time includes seconds. Please clarify.
Thanks!
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John Doe What decides that Stellarium is accurate when differing from Starry Night?
And what decides that it is not?
Run a dozen different astro apps and get a dozen variations in the calculation. There are a multitude of variables involved.
I would have expected a more helpful response from a Starry Night manager.
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Keiron Smith Did you check multiple reputable resources to cross-reference data points? Maybe you will find some resources converge on the same data point.
Yes, there are variables, for example the Delta-T is use.
A scientific approach will, imo, cross-reference multiple reputable resources. That is, kind of, the point of science.
To answer your question about why Stellarium offers different results from SN8 will require our developers go through the Stellarium code, line by line. And, that is not going to be a priority.
Did you check with NASA? Highly reputable.
Thanks!
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John Doe Hey Keiron,
The helpful answer to the OP's question about Stellarium is exactly that: There are variables (like ΔT) that introduce differences. Taking a defensive stance is not helpful when the OP was clearly asking a legitimate question and not launching an attack on Starry Night. Furthermore, no one is asking SN devs to go through Stellarium code and explain or justify the differences. At least I did not read that in the OP's post. The question as clearly asked from a standpoint of a lack of understanding of the quite complex math that goes into astro software.
Your suggestions to cross reference are excellent advice and had they been more amiably expressed, would not be overlooked. I was just passing by during my review of SN in consideration of possibly using it exactly as you suggest: a cross reference for NASA, Stellarium, and code that I have written. This was the first post in the search engine hit list and consequently formed the basis of my first impression of SN as a product.
Thanks for taking time to respond.
All the best to you and your team.
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Keiron Smith Thank you for your insight and feedback, John.
Differing source results is a challenge that every archeo-astronomer will eventually wrestle with.
Starry Night and SkySafari are each one great source, but should not be the only source for any advanced scientific research.
As Starry Night and SkySafari were originally developed independently, there are minor differences between even these two programs.
Starry Night Pro and Pro Plus do, however, feature the ability to manually configure the Delta-T - an important consideration for archeo-astronomy.