Ephemerides are used in celestial navigation and astronomy. They are also used byastrologers.[4]GPS signals include ephemeris data used to calculate the position of satellites in orbit.
13th century AD – theAlfonsine Tables were compiled in Spain to correct anomalies in theTables of Toledo, remaining the standard European ephemeris until thePrutenic Tables almost 300 years later.
13th century AD - theDresden Codex, an extant Mayan ephemeris
1504 – While shipwrecked on the island of Jamaica,Christopher Columbus successfully predicted a lunar eclipse for the natives, using the ephemeris of the German astronomerRegiomontanus.[6]
1531 – Work ofJohannes Stöffler is published posthumously at Tübingen, extending the ephemeris of Regiomontanus through 1551.
1554 –Johannes Stadius publishedEphemerides novae et auctae, the first major ephemeris computed according to Copernicus'heliocentric model, using parameters derived from thePrutenic Tables. Although the Copernican model provided an elegant solution to the problem of computing apparent planetary positions (it avoided the need for theequant and better explained theapparent retrograde motion of planets), it still relied on the use ofepicycles, leading to some inaccuracies – for example, periodic errors in the position of Mercury of up to ten degrees. One of the users of Stadius's tables isTycho Brahe.
1679 –LaConnaissance des Temps ou calendrier et éphémérides du lever & coucher du Soleil, de la Lune & des autres planètes, first published yearly byJean Picard and still extant.
1975 –Owen Gingerich, using modern planetary theory and digital computers, calculates the actual positions of the planets in the 16th century and graphs the errors in the planetary positions predicted by the ephemerides of Stöffler, Stadius and others. According to Gingerich, the error patterns "are as distinctive as fingerprints and reflect the characteristics of the underlying tables. That is, the error patterns for Stöffler are different from those of Stadius, but the error patterns of Stadius closely resemble those ofMaestlin,Magini,Origanus, and others who followed the Copernican parameters."[7]
For scientific uses, a modern planetary ephemeris comprises software that generates positions of planets and often of their satellites,asteroids, orcomets, at virtually any time desired by the user.
After introduction of electronic computers in the 1950s it became feasible to usenumerical integration to compute ephemerides. TheJet Propulsion Laboratory Development Ephemeris is a prime example. Conventional so-called analytical ephemerides that utilize series expansions for the coordinates have also been developed, but of much increased size and accuracy as compared to the past, by making use of computers to manage the tens of thousands of terms.Ephemeride Lunaire Parisienne andVSOP are examples.
Typically, such ephemerides cover several centuries, past and future; the future ones can be covered because the field ofcelestial mechanics has developed several accurate theories. Nevertheless, there aresecular phenomena which cannot adequately be considered by ephemerides. The greatest uncertainties in the positions of planets are caused by the perturbations of numerousasteroids, most of whose masses and orbits are poorly known, rendering their effect uncertain. Reflecting the continuing influx of new data and observations,NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has revised itspublished ephemerides nearly every year since 1981.[8]
Scientific ephemerides for sky observers mostly contain the positions of celestial bodies inright ascension anddeclination, because these coordinates are the most frequently used on star maps and telescopes. Theequinox of the coordinate system must be given. It is, in nearly all cases, either the actual equinox (the equinox valid for that moment, often referred to as "of date" or "current"), or that of one of the "standard" equinoxes, typicallyJ2000.0,B1950.0, or J1900. Star maps almost always use one of the standard equinoxes.
Scientific ephemerides often contain further useful data about the moon, planet, asteroid, or comet beyond the pure coordinates in the sky, such as elongation to the Sun, brightness, distance, velocity, apparent diameter in the sky, phase angle, times of rise, transit, and set, etc.Ephemerides of the planetSaturn also sometimes contain the apparent inclination of its ring.
Celestial navigation serves as a backup tosatellite navigation. Software is widely available to assist with this form of navigation; some of this software has a self-contained ephemeris.[9] When software is used that does not contain an ephemeris, or if no software is used, position data for celestial objects may be obtained from the modernNautical Almanac orAir Almanac.[10]
An ephemeris is usually only correct for a particular location on the Earth. In many cases, the differences are too small to matter. However, for nearbyasteroids or theMoon, they can be quite important.
Other modern ephemerides recently created are the EPM (Ephemerides of Planets and the Moon), from the Russian Institute for Applied Astronomy of theRussian Academy of Sciences,[11] and the INPOP (Intégrateur numérique planétaire de l'Observatoire de Paris) by the FrenchIMCCE.[12][13]
^Viswanathan, V.; Fienga, A.; Gastineau, M.; Laskar, J. (1 August 2017). "INPOP17a planetary ephemerides".Notes Scientifiques et Techniques de l'Institut de Mécanique Céleste.108: 108.Bibcode:2017NSTIM.108.....V.doi:10.13140/RG.2.2.24384.43521.
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