I am trying to calculate the position of a point on the Earth's surface with respect to the Sun's center at certain date at time.
For what I am trying to do it is OK to ignore precession of Earth's orbit and precession, nutation and polar motion of the rotating Earth.
Lets say that I have coordinate system centered at the Sun , where the axis points at the point of vernal equinox, the plane is the plane of Earth's orbit around the Sun, the axis pointing toward the ecliptic north pole and then completes the right-handed system.
So far I've been able to find the following orbital elements at the epoch J2000:
- major radius
- mean longitude at epoch
-eccentricity
- inclination to the ecliptic
- longitude of perihelion
- orbital period
- planetary-solar mass ratio
Now knowing this I could determine the orbit of the Earth at certain date, however I am unable to determine Earth's orientation.
Lets say that we have ECEF coordinate system centered at Earth's center of mass with the axis pointing toward the north pole (we can assume that it coincides with Earth's rotational axis), the axis pointing toward the intersection of the prime meridian and the equator and then completing the right-handed system.
At the point of vernal equinox by definition the equatorial plane crosses the center of the sun.Knowing this and the axial tilt of of the Earth's rotational axis I can determine the axis and plane with respect to coordinates but I cannot determine the exact positions of and axes which I need.
I searched a lot for data showing me the orbital elements at certain epoch AND the exact orientation of the Earth ( coordinates expressed as at the vernal equinox) so that I can use it for my calculations but I didn't succeed. From all the things that I found I am still unable to tell what the orientation of the Earth is at certain point so I can't really determine the position of certain point on its surface at certain time with respect to the Sun.
I assume that I am missing something or that I have some fault in my approach since I am complete noob at astronomy and I've never dealt with this before I had to find a way to perform this calculation. I will take any suggestions if there is a better way to solve the initial problem that I am trying to solve or if there is a place where I can find the data that I need.
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