Talk:Nautical almanac

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[edit] Original publication Date

Wasn't the 1767 issue of the Nautical almanac published in 1766, so as to have been available to mariners during the entire year? --SV Resolution(Talk) 14:24, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Aries is not a star, and doesn't have an exact location

Something seems fishy to me about the explanation of Aries being listed in the almanac. When I look at the sample photograph, I see an hour angle specified to very high accuracy, under the column labeled "Aries". But Aries is a constellation, and the entire constellation spans a rather large range of angles, both in right ascension and declination. I suspect that this column is really designating the First Point of Aries, i.e. the position of the ascending node where the ecliptic intersects the equatorial plane. This would be logical because it would correct for time of year for which right ascension is measured. Can anybody verify this? I strongly suspect that this part of the article needs to be corrected. CosineKitty (talk) 15:35, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Upon further reading, the wording makes it sound like Aries is a star, which is wrong. It is a constellation. CosineKitty (talk) 15:36, 17 April 2008 (UTC)