The American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac was published for the years 1855 to 1980, containing information necessary for astronomers, surveyors, and navigators. It was based on the original British publication,
The Nautical Almanac and Astronomical Ephemeris, with which it merged to form
The Astronomical AlmanacThe Astronomical Almanac is an almanac published by the United States Naval Observatory and Her Majesty's Nautical Almanac Office, containing solar system ephemeris and catalogs of selected stellar and extragalactic objects....
, published from the year 1981 to the present.
Authorized by Congress in 1849, the American Nautical Almanac Office was founded and attached to the Department of the Navy.
The American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac was published for the years 1855 to 1980, containing information necessary for astronomers, surveyors, and navigators. It was based on the original British publication,
The Nautical Almanac and Astronomical Ephemeris, with which it merged to form
The Astronomical AlmanacThe Astronomical Almanac is an almanac published by the United States Naval Observatory and Her Majesty's Nautical Almanac Office, containing solar system ephemeris and catalogs of selected stellar and extragalactic objects....
, published from the year 1981 to the present.
History
Authorized by Congress in 1849, the American Nautical Almanac Office was founded and attached to the Department of the Navy. The
American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac was first published in 1852, containing data for the year 1855. Its data was originally calculated by human "computers", such as
Chauncey WrightChauncey Wright , American philosopher and mathematician, was born at Northampton, Massachusetts.In 1852 he graduated at Harvard, and became computer to the American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac. He made his name by contributions on mathematical and physical subjects in the Mathematical Monthly...
and
Joseph WinlockJoseph Winlock was an American astronomer and mathematician.He was born in Shelby County, Kentucky, the grandson of General Joseph Winlock...
. Between 1855 and 1881 it had two parts, the first for the
meridian of GreenwichThe Prime Meridian is the meridian at which longitude is defined to be 0°.The Prime Meridian and its opposite the 180th meridian , which the International Date Line generally follows, form a great circle that divides the Earth into the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.Unlike the parallels of...
contained data on the
SunThe Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. The Earth and other matter orbit the Sun, which by itself accounts for about 99.86% of the Solar System's mass....
,
MoonThe Moon is Earth's only natural satellite and the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System. The average centre-to-centre distance from the Earth to the Moon is , about thirty times the diameter of the Earth. The common centre of mass of the system is located at about —a quarter the Earth's...
,
lunar distancesIn celestial navigation, lunar distance is the angle between the Moon and another celestial body. A navigator can use a lunar distance and a nautical almanac to calculate Greenwich time...
,
VenusVenus is the second-closest planet to the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. The planet is named after Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty. After the Moon, it is the brightest natural object in the night sky, reaching an apparent magnitude of −4.6...
,
MarsMars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after Mars, the Roman god of war. It is also referred to as the "Red Planet" because of its reddish appearance, due to iron oxide prevalent on its surface....
,
JupiterJupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass slightly less than one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all of the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas...
, and
SaturnSaturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Saturn, along with Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune, is classified as a gas giant...
, which was published separately as
The American Nautical Almanac. The second part contained data for the
meridian of WashingtonThe Washington meridian was one of four prime meridians of the United States which passed through Washington, D.C.. The four which have been specified are:# through the Capitol# through the White House# through the old Naval Observatory...
on the Sun, Moon, planets, principal stars,
eclipseAn eclipse is an astronomical event that occurs when one celestial object moves into the shadow of another. The term is derived from the ancient Greek noun , which is derived from the verb , "to cease to exist," a combination of prefix , from preposition , "out," and of verb , "to be absent"...
s,
occultationAn occultation is an event that occurs when one object is hidden by another object that passes between it and the observer. The word is used in astronomy and can also be used in a general sense to describe when an object in the foreground occults objects in the background...
s, and other phenomena. Beginning in 1882, data for
MercuryFor the liquid metallic element, see Mercury .Mercury is the innermost and smallest planet in the Solar System, orbiting the Sun once every 87.969 days. The orbit of Mercury has the highest eccentricity of all the Solar System planets, and it has the smallest axial tilt. It completes three...
,
UranusUranus is the seventh planet from the Sun, and the third-largest and fourth most massive planet in the Solar System. It is named after the ancient Greek deity of the sky Uranus the father of Kronos and grandfather of Zeus...
, and
NeptuneNeptune is the eighth planet from the Sun in our Solar System. Named for the Roman god of the sea, it is the fourth-largest planet by diameter and the third-largest by mass. Neptune is 17 times the mass of Earth and is slightly more massive than its near-twin Uranus, which is 15 Earth masses and...
was added to the first part, with eclipses, occultations, and other phenomena forming a separate third part. In 1916,
The American Nautical Almanac ceased to be a reprint of the first part of the
American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac, becoming a separately prepared volume for the navigator. In 1937, the
American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac was divided into seven parts, with data for the meridian of Washington substantially reduced, then eliminated beginning in 1951. Data for
PlutoPluto, formal designation 134340 Pluto, is the second-largest known dwarf planet in the Solar System and the tenth-largest body observed directly orbiting the Sun...
was added in 1950.
Beginning in 1960, all parts except for a few introductory pages were jointly calculated and typeset by the American Nautical Almanac Office and Her Majesty's Nautical Almanac Office but published separately within
The American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac and
The Astronomical Ephemeris, a new name for the old British title
The Nautical Almanac and Astronomical Ephemeris. Beginning in 1981, the title
The American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac and the British title
The Astronomical Ephemeris were completely merged under the single title
The Astronomical Almanac.
See also
- Astronomical Almanac
The Astronomical Almanac is an almanac published by the United States Naval Observatory and Her Majesty's Nautical Almanac Office, containing solar system ephemeris and catalogs of selected stellar and extragalactic objects....
(specific title)
- Astronomical Ephemeris (generic article)
- Almanac
An almanac is an annual publication containing tabular information in a particular field or fields often arranged according to the calendar...
(generic article)
- Nautical almanac
A nautical almanac is a publication describing the positions of a selection of celestial bodies for the purpose of enabling navigators to use celestial navigation to determine the position of their ship while at sea...
(generic article)
- The Nautical Almanac
The Nautical Almanac has been the familiar name for a series of official British almanacs published under various titles since the first issue of The Nautical Almanac and Astronomical Ephemeris, for 1767: this was the first nautical almanac ever to contain data dedicated to the convenient...
(familiar name for a specific series of (official British) publications which appeared under a variety of different full titles for the period 1767 to 1959, as well as being a specific official title (jointly UK/US-published) for 1960 onwards)
External links