Jenab6
The procedure for "determining an orbit with three geocentric angular positions by the method of Gauss" might be too long to present in full here. Find it on my LiveJournal website at
http://jenab6.livejournal.com/12572.html
My presentation closely follows that of A.D. Dubyago in his book THE DETERMINATION OF ORBITS, translated from the Russian by the RAND Corporation. However, I have somewhat revised Dubyago's nomenclature, corrected some typographical errors in his output, and substituted a more straightforward procedure for getting the orbital elements from the state vector, once the heliocentric position and velocity are known.
Jerry Abbott
http://jenab6.livejournal.com/12572.html
My presentation closely follows that of A.D. Dubyago in his book THE DETERMINATION OF ORBITS, translated from the Russian by the RAND Corporation. However, I have somewhat revised Dubyago's nomenclature, corrected some typographical errors in his output, and substituted a more straightforward procedure for getting the orbital elements from the state vector, once the heliocentric position and velocity are known.
Jerry Abbott