MAKING A CALENDAR

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 664, 16 May 1929, Page 2

MAKING A CALENDAR

A WORLD-WIDE TASK Probably not one man in a million, says Mr. Moses B. Cotsworth, director of the International Fixed Calendar League, realises that the basis for making each year's scientific calendar requires six years of cooperative work by astronomers in five leading nations, says the “Daily Telegraph.” On August li, 1927, the calculations for the year 1933 were begun by computors in the Greenwich Observatory and the Nautical Almanac Office. These men work out for all the nations the right ascension and declination of the sun, moon, and 84 of the fixed stars at each of the 24 hours in every day. By August, 1928, these results were printed and sent to the directors of the national observatories in the United States, Germany, France, and Spain, to enable each of these nations to begin their quota of the work. No part is duplicated. The Lrnited States astronomers work out the eclipses of the sun and moon for all the nations, and the hourly positions of the planets and their satellites. Germany calculates the hourly positions for 307 of the fixed stars in one area of the heavens. It is France’s task to work out the hourly position of the Polar stars. Spain does the same work for 65 of the more southerly stars. It takes about eighteen months for these four countries to complete the task, and at the end of that period the four national directors, having printed their results, send copies to each other and to the Greenwich authorities. At Greenwich the information is combined in the Nautical Almanac for 1933, which will be printed and issued by the end of 1930. From this almanac all the nations will be able to work out for eacli of their own ports the dailv tiinefc and heights of the tides.