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Numerical integration for the real time production of fundamental ephemerides over a wide time span

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Abstract

A simplified model of the solar system has been developed along with an integration method, enabling to compute planetary and lunar ephemerides to an accuracy better than 1 and 2 milliarcsecs, respectively. On current personal computers, the integration procedure (SOLEX) is fast enough that by using a relatively small (∼ 20 Kbytes/Cy) database of starting conditions, any epoch in the time interval (up to ±100 Cy) covered by the database can be reached by the integrator in a few seconds. This makes the algorithm convenient for the direct computation of high precision ephemerides over a time span of several millennia.

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Vitagliano, A. Numerical integration for the real time production of fundamental ephemerides over a wide time span. Celestial Mech Dyn Astr 66, 293–308 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00049383

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00049383

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