Going back in time around year 8 A.D

[anotherbite]

Hello,

I'm new on the forum, and love very much your Celestia (great for Kids).

I saw a function to simulate the configuration of planets (comets ?) backwards in time but was limited to 20 years or so . I wish to know if it's possible to calculate the position of stars and comets between 7 AD and 9 AD ?

Cheers

[selden]

anotherbite,

Celestia is great for more than just kids

Celestia's orbit calculations for the planets of the Solar System is very accurate for about +/- 3000 years around the current date.

Unfortunately, Celestia cometary orbits are only accurate for a "short" period of time (typically less than a year) around the date of the Epoch specified in their .SSC catalogs. They're just simple elliptical orbits and don't take into account any gravitational or other effects.

Also, Celestia does not display any star motions at all.

However, extremely accurate orbital trajectories for objects within the Solar System can be obtained from JPL's Horizons ephemeris service and then incorporated as Addons to Celestia.

Horizons is on the web at http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.html

I hope this helps a little.

[anotherbite]

yes it does help, thanks so much selden..

I'm going to look that

and yes huh,huh, not just for kids, I meant that among all the softs/games ruling violence, that one is brilliant for education..

cheers..