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Date Conversions?

seer
Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
Mon, 09/23/2019 - 13:39

I have been trying to wrap my head around and learn date conversions because I imagine that I will be using them more in the future. I started out with using the book PRACTICAL ASTRONOMY by STORM DUNLOP. The pages in the book that cover this are in CHARTER 5 Recording Observations in the first section Time. I think there was one of the dates that he gave that I was unable to match. With the help of this book and a few internet sources I put together what you see in the attachments for use in my astronomy journal. I am not sure if it is correct especially decimal days. Is what I put together wrong?

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Date Conversions 1.JPG134.85 KB
Date Conversions 2.JPG132.66 KB
Bikeman
Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
Mon, 09/23/2019 - 23:26
Correct

This is correct, and it's probably useful to know how this works in principle, even tho neither you nor the readers of your article will probably ever actually do this calculation again. At least I struggle to imagine a situation where one would do that, given that there's an abundance of tools/apps/spreadsheets, online and offline, to do this boring and repetitive task. Adding the URL of the AAVSOs JD calculator :

https://www.aavso.org/jd-calculator

might be useful for your article (there are also printable JD calendars as needed for your calculation available under the same URL if one insists on the manual conversion).

Clear Skies

HBE

 

seer
Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
Wed, 09/25/2019 - 19:23
Thank you very much for your

Thank you very much for your reply HBE. I'm sure that what you porvided will be of help to me in the future.

I am continuing to work towards being able to help this site out by providing my own observations. I will need the use of a printer for printing out the charts. I do not have a printer anymore because it just ended up being a big waste. I didn't use it often enough and the ink kept drying up. Today I went to my local library and got a new library card. I can use their computers and printer to print out the charts and they even laminate. Now my concern is in understanding all of the abbreviations and what is needed on the form.