Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Chronology - was uncancellable meaning in hebrew verbs
Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2009 17:46:12 +0200
Dear James,
While I have a very good background in Hebrew and Akkadian (having
taught both languages for 12 years), I have little background in
mathematics and astronomy. So here I have to rely on others. I use
four astro-programs: TheSky6., SkyMap Lite, CyberSky 4, and TheSky X
(for Macintosh). As for solar and lunar eclipses, all the programs
give the same information, and this is the same as can be found at
NASA.
Some of the positions of the moon and the planets found in old
cuneiform tablets (some being real observations, an quite a lot being
backward calculations) have very specific measures; some go down to
the equivalent to 1/2 degree, and others even to a few minutes. In
these specific cases there can be some problems because the programs
sometimes differ, in special cases up to 2 degrees. I have discussed
the reason for this with several US astronomers, and they have told
me that the differences probably are caused by slightly different
mathematical formulas in the different programs. Their advice has
been to use TheSky X or the related TheSky6, because these are the
most accurate programs. I have a colleague at the University of Oslo,
who is professor in astrophysics with archaeoastronomy as one of his
special fields. He has at my request made some calculations-not using
any of the mentioned programs-and his results are almost exactly the
same as those found by the help of TheSky X. I therefore think that
the positions I have found has a good foundation.
Best regards,
Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo
Sounds like good stuff. That's the kind of thing I've been meaning
to look into for a long while.
What sources do you use for astronomical events such solar eclipses etc?