Astro Time Calculator             version 3.03beta
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by Gerry kichok                     GEnie:G.KICHOK

Showing the power of HyperLINK's programability.
The calculations are very intense and saves or
links take a little bit of time.

The only reason I call this a beta release is
because some of teh calculations where not as
percise as I would have liked, oh well, I was
going to work on it more when a bug was fixed in
version 2.04 of HyperLINK, but George has not
gotten to it.

Beta testing

I have found that HyperLINK version 2.04 crashes
quite easily when an equation is set to
"-expression" or "0/expression". If you have a
crash write down the numbers entered that caused
the crash and e-mail me the inputs on GEnie.

Run-only version 2.05, won't crash with this HAP.

Input

There are only a few places to input:
ENTER - database button
    Year (num,5,0), Month (num,2,0), Day (num,2,0)
B.C.  - database button
    Hour (num,2,0), Minute(num,2,0), Secs(num,2,0)
Time Zone (num,4,1) and '-' - database button
Daylight Savings Time - database button
Longitude (num,6,2) and 'E' - database button

There is no error checking done for input, so if
you input 26h96m77s, it will be processed as is.

Formulas

The formulas are about 10 years old from the
Celestrial Basic Book by Eric Burgess. Included
with Astro Time are the formulas for to calculate
Julian Date from Georgian Date (Normal time) and
Sidereal Time from Local Time. All formulas are
enhanced to take Day Light Savings Time  into
account as well as Longitude.

Accuracy

In the original formulas times are computed
within a few seconds' accuracy, suitable for
setting circles on equatrial mounts.

Compared with other programs, mostly IBM, Astro
Time is with +/- 30 seconds.

Sig Figs

HyperLINK is only signifacant to 5 deciamal
places and there is no rounding up, just cut off
that extra fat.

Therefore numbers at 37.65749 cut to 4 decimal
places is 37.6574, and even worse with no decimal
places the number _IS_ 37 .(Which is great for
calculating integers!)

Thanks, I will be releasing a final version as
soon as HyperLINK is updated.


You may also notice the HELP & VERSIONS buttons
links to a non-existant HELP & VERSIONS HAPs which
is done but I didn't think it needed to be
released with this HAP. If someone would ask me
for the finished product I will complete it, but
if no one cares then neither do I, I am a little
bitter about the state HyperLINK was left in.

[Disclaimer]

I make no claims to the accuracy of the data or
calculations and cannot be held responsible for
any loses or damage incurred by the use of this
HyperLINK Application.

Any data lost is not my fault, eh!  
PLEASE, ALWAYS make BACKUPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If a problem is found please outline your
situation clearly and what happened, and send it
to me VIA GEnie or regular mail. I would like to
keep my applications as error free as possible.

Gerry Kichok

This HyperLINK Application is Conscience-Ware,
and may be distributed freely as long as the
original archive is still intact with no
modifications or omissions. All artwork included
must remain with the original HAP and may NOT be
used for any other purposes unless authorized by
the Artist.