Saturday 12 November 2011

fundamental astronomy - Equation of the Center constant factor

This questions concerns the longitudinal aspect of the Equation of Time, also called the Equation of the Center. In some sources the equation looks like the following:



$nu - M = 2varepsilon sin M$ (1)



where $nu$ is the True Anomaly of the Sun's position from the Earth, $M$ is the Mean Anomaly, and $varepsilon$ is the eccentricity of the Earth's orbit (0.0167). $nu - M$ is the difference between the Sun's actual angle and the and the angle that would exist if the Earth's orbit were circular.



Other sources have a first-order approximation that looks like the following:



Time deviation (minutes) = $-7.655 sin d$ (2)



where d is the day of the year.



My difficulty is reconciling these two equations. None of the sources actually make this connection explicit. I assume that the difference has to do with converting angles and times, and I have tried various approaches to making the numbers work out, without avail. I would appreciate it if someone could tell me how the value of -7.655 minutes is derivable from $2 varepsilon$ and or point me at a resource that demonstrates the connection between them.



(Note I realize that both (1) and (2) are approximations. At this stage, I am trying to understand the situation in its simplest form before adding refinements.

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