IAU Commission 4 Access to Different Forms of Ephemerides

  Modern High-Accuracy Ephemerides (for use by professionals) 
  For the highest accuracy available :   

  Planetary and Lunar Ephemerides  in "export" format from JPL/Caltech, Pasadena, CA 

        See first, the : README.txt file  

        FTP from the Internet :  ftp://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/pub/eph/planets/  

        Obtain a CD-ROM :  http://www.willbell.com/software/jpl.htm   

   or 


  Planetary, lunar, satellite, some comet and asteroid, and earth station ephemerides in "SPICE SPK" format  

        http://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/ 

              Full accuracy JPL ephemerides

   or 


  Planetary and Lunar Ephemerides from the IPA, St. Petersburg 

        FTP Website : ftp://quasar.ipa.nw.ru/incoming/EPM2004/  

          The source of the IPA's EPM ephemerides


 or  


   Ephemerides from the IMCCE, Paris, France 

          Planetary, lunar, natural satellites, comets and asteroids

          Codes, data, software

    FTP site :   ftp://ftp.imcce.fr/pub/ephem/   
    WEB site :  http://www.imcce.fr/ 



  Interactive Almanacs 
     The user supplies the particulars; the website does the computing. 


 http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/  

   The JPL Solar System Dynamics Interactive Website, which 
   includes "Horizons":

       Astronomical Quantities for the 9 planets.
       Orbital Elements and Ephemerides for (as of 26 August 2005) : 
               Sun and 9 planets,
               150 natural satellites (including the Moon),
               291,655 asteroids,
               1631 comets, and
               34 Spacecraft.
       Full Precision of the JPL DE405 ephemerides.
       Updated on an hourly basis.


 http://aa.usno.navy.mil/AA/data/  

   The U S Naval Observatory : Interactive Web Programs and Online Tables

            Various astronomical quantities, phenomena, etc.


 http://www.imcce.fr/ 

   Interactive Website of the IMCCE, Paris :

       Ephemerides of the Sun, planets, natural satellites, asteroids, comets
       Phenomena of the natural planetary satellites
       Sunrise and sunset, rise and set of planets, asteroids, comets from everywhere
       Calendars

 Subroutine Packages for Astrometrical Computations 
  for  experienced programmers  who write their own main driving programs 

 http://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/ 

The SPICE toolkit contains a large library of subroutines useful in
reading SPICE format ephemeris files (SPK) and in computing many solar
system observation geometry parameters.  Available in Fortran, C, and
IDL for most popular computing platforms.


 http://aa.usno.navy.mil/software/novas/new_novas_f/ 

NOVAS (Naval Observatory Vector Astrometry Subroutines) : a
package of subroutines, available in Fortran and C, for the
computation of a wide variety of common astrometric quantities and
transformations using the IAU resolutions.

 http://www.iau-sofa.rl.ac.uk/ 

SOFA (Standards of Fundamental Astrometry): the IAU package of
computer subroutines for implementing the IAU resolutions.

  


 http://www.willbell.com/software/index.htm 
     Willmann-Bell, Inc. : software, etc.



  Printed Tables  
      Commercially available published almanacs  

 http://aa.usno.navy.mil/AA/publications/docs/almanacs.html 

   United States Naval Observatory : information on their printed publications

 http://www.nao.rl.ac.uk/

   The Website of Her Majesty's Nautical Almanac Office

 http://www.imcce.fr/ 

   IMCCE (formerly, Bureau des Longitudes) : information on their printed publications

 http://www.ipa.nw.ru/PAGE/EDITION/ENG/engpublish.htm 

   Institute of Applied Astronomy RAS: information on their printed publications


  Short Formulae : 
  Computer-designed formulae for user-written programs  

 keplerformulae/ 

     Keplerian elements : from the (soon-to-be-published) Explanatory Supplement to the Astronomical Almanac

  Formulae for planetary coordinates : Explanatory Supplement (1961 version, 
      pages 98, 107, and 113 for the Sun, Moon, and planets, respectively).

  Approximate formulae on pages C24 and D46 of The Astronomical Almanac, 
     available from the U S Naval Observatory, Washington, DC 
           and from Her Majesty's Nautical Almanac Office, Cambridge, UK.

  "Compact Data for Astronomy and Navigation", 
  a series of books available from H M Nautical Almanac Office, Cambridge, UK.

 http://aa.usno.navy.mil/AA/software/ 

   U S Naval Observatory 

       Access to the USNO Distributed software (MICA, NOVAS, etc.)

 Trigonometric series for heliocentric, spherical coordinates
      [Van Flandern, T.C.: 1979, Astrophysical Journal, v. 41,  pp. 391-411]  
      (The user is advised to ignore the part about geocentric right ascension and 
      declination; it is better to compute heliocentric coordinates for the planet and 
      earth separately, transform these into vectors, subtract the vectors, and then 
      transform back into spherical coordinates.  Also one needs to apply (remove) 
      precession in order to transform the output into an inertial frame.)