Old Math for An Old Fellow
Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2020 2:58 pm
Well, after wasting time on crating a realistic program to list the elongations of Deimos (a Moon of Mars) that makes little sense I found several tables for 2018 that do not match each other nor mine nor JPL’s. 
Even the difference is non-linear, so that can’t be right. My tables appeared that Deimos had a fairly high elliptical orbit when the eccentricity is very close to zero (0.0002). The retrogression (Mars orbit stuff) has no effect on the calculations.
So, it is a complete waste of my time at my age to worry about two tiny rocks orbiting Mars. Back to Jupiter’s Great Red Spot (GRS). Why? It is only a huge earth size storm in a flowing hydrogen and helium cloud band. Hell, NOAA, or the Weather Channel, can predict the next hour of cloudiness, rain or air temp, so why should I try it on a planet way off yonder? I often wonder why anyone would create math models for clouds!
My background had been electronics, computers, aerodynamics and astronomy for 62 years, why should I trust math models?
Just trying to not watch TV, especially the sell out Fox News, and doing useless computing stuff. Aero equations are very complex and interesting. Until my mentor, the late Mars expert Chick Capen, asked me to code up computer programs for the ephemeris of Mars I had not studied spherical trigonometry. They do not teach it in schools. Our old analog simulator electrical diagrams (prints) had math (calculus) symbols at certain electronic functions so we could then differentiate them into some recognizable math. Well, most would involve translating aero equations into electronic stuff. After a few years it was habit to do such stuff, but when I started doing Mars ephemeris stuff then differentiating spherical trigonometry integrals was nasty. Am I too old to understand that stuff?
The reason I started doing Deimos orbits is that someone asked me about it, and not watching TV.
Even the difference is non-linear, so that can’t be right. My tables appeared that Deimos had a fairly high elliptical orbit when the eccentricity is very close to zero (0.0002). The retrogression (Mars orbit stuff) has no effect on the calculations. So, it is a complete waste of my time at my age to worry about two tiny rocks orbiting Mars. Back to Jupiter’s Great Red Spot (GRS). Why? It is only a huge earth size storm in a flowing hydrogen and helium cloud band. Hell, NOAA, or the Weather Channel, can predict the next hour of cloudiness, rain or air temp, so why should I try it on a planet way off yonder? I often wonder why anyone would create math models for clouds!
My background had been electronics, computers, aerodynamics and astronomy for 62 years, why should I trust math models?
Just trying to not watch TV, especially the sell out Fox News, and doing useless computing stuff. Aero equations are very complex and interesting. Until my mentor, the late Mars expert Chick Capen, asked me to code up computer programs for the ephemeris of Mars I had not studied spherical trigonometry. They do not teach it in schools. Our old analog simulator electrical diagrams (prints) had math (calculus) symbols at certain electronic functions so we could then differentiate them into some recognizable math. Well, most would involve translating aero equations into electronic stuff. After a few years it was habit to do such stuff, but when I started doing Mars ephemeris stuff then differentiating spherical trigonometry integrals was nasty. Am I too old to understand that stuff?
The reason I started doing Deimos orbits is that someone asked me about it, and not watching TV.
