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I've been working my way through the Jean Meeus Astronomical Algorithms book for a few weeks, to implement some of the key algorithms for a personal project. This task has been a little more complex on the basis I have no astro or mathematics background. That said I've made a lot of progress but I've hit a problem which I cannot resolve - I think there's some assumed maths/astro conventions which I'm unaware of given my limitations therein.

To calculate the moon rise, transit and set times in chapter 15 I'v implemented the steps in ruby code - but I'm not sharing code as yet, as I'm hoping that the community of experts may be able to isolate the step in which I'm going wrong by looking at a good and a bad iteration as per the tabulation below?

For the majority of date/times/locations I have what seem to be correct results which correlate to other sites within 1-2 mins of variance which at this stage I'm accepting at this stage as implementation differences.

For example:

    Date: 2019-03-18
Location:  -0.093439 Longitude (pos=west, neg=east of greenwich)
           53.670404 Latitude (pos north)
   Rise @ [2019-03-18 14:29:14 +0000]
Transit @ [2019-03-18 22:17:04 +0000]   CORRECT
    Set @ [2019-03-18 05:19:36 +0000]

    Date: 2019-03-19
Location:  -0.093439 Longitude (positive west, negative east of greenwich)
           53.670404 Latitude (pos north)
   Rise @ [2019-03-19 15:56:36 +0000]
Transit @ [2019-03-19 23:14:52 +0000]   CORRECT
    Set @ [2019-03-19 05:52:12 +0000]

But then if I step to the next day there are problems:

    Date: 2019-03-20
Location:  -0.093439 Longitude (positive west, negative east of greenwich)
           53.670404 Latitude (pos north)
   Rise @ [2019-03-20 16:37:59 +0000]   WRONG TIME
Transit @ [2019-03-21 01:09:54 +0000]   WRONG DAY
    Set @ [2019-03-19 22:15:00 +0000]   WRONG DAY

As you can see the range of event dates spans 3 days, and this is clearly incorrect. The steps/results as per the Meeus Chapter 15 are as follows:

                            Status: CORRECT                      INCORRECT
                             Date : 2019-03-19                   2019-03-20
      moon standard altitude (h0) : 0.125                        0.125
                               JD : 2458561.5                    2458562.5
  D-1 (Yesterday) Right Ascension : 137.01106495635904           152.0944122662908 
      D-1 (Yesterday) Declination : 18.2193887474612             14.518563964332268
          (Today) Right Ascension : 152.0944122662908            166.75563154781935 
              (Today) Declination : 14.518563964332268           9.843091724045754
   D+1 (Tomorrow) Right Ascension : 166.75563154781935           -179.0311021513076 
       D+1 (Tomorrow) Declination : 9.843091724045754            4.558782463778083 
         (F 15.1) Approx Times H0 : 110.38644846740502           103.4269126435807
           --------------References below to m0 is Transit, m1 is Rise, m2 is Set-------------
             Sidereal @ Greenwich : 176.25537825981155           177.24102563038468
        Delta_T (taken from USNO) : 69.34                        69.34
                                         ----------------Rise----------------
         (F 15.2) Approx Times m1 : 0.6260085903712865           0.6833284046859307
          Interplate Factor m1, n : 0.6268111366675828           0.684130950982227
   (F 3.3) Intrplate m1 Ascension : 161.3335996586275            -30.862132317267736
      (F 3.3) Intrplate m1 Declin : 11.701920142830645           6.293715763821567
                    Sidereal time : 42.23549428254836            63.91277190941321
                                        ----------------Transit----------------
         (F 15.2) Approx Times m0 : 0.9326376138918561           0.9706253842514326
          Interplate Factor m0, n : 0.9334401601881523           0.9714279305477289
   (F 3.3) Intrplate m0 Ascension : 165.79289646958304           -164.14901582079125
      (F 3.3) Intrplate m0 Declin : 10.184567649150054           4.718215465725156
                    Sidereal time : 152.9241707270994            167.62285795901175
                                          ----------------Set----------------
         (F 15.2) Approx Times m2 : 0.2392666374124255           0.2579223638169346
          Interplate Factor m2, n : 0.2400691837087218           0.2587249101132309
   (F 3.3) Intrplate m2 Ascension : 155.65262487970153           111.85648516249893 
      (F 3.3) Intrplate m2 Declin : 13.485032537642851           8.534292594792108
                    Sidereal time : 262.6272001716504            270.3472970086102
          ----------------From this point I will only illustrate Transit---------------- 
             Local Hour Angle (H) : -12.775286742483644          -28.13468722019701
      Transit delta_m (-(H/360.0)): 0.03548690761801012          0.07815190894499169
    Adjusted Transit (m0+delta_m) : 0.9681245215098662           1.0487772931964243
             Convert to hrs (x24) : 23.23498851623679            25.170655036714184
                    Base time (D) : 2019-03-19 00:00:00 UTC      2019-03-20 00:00:00 UTC
                                    CORRECT                      PROBLEM          
              Transit time (D+m0) : 2019-03-19 23:14:05 UTC      2019-03-21 01:10:14 UTC

The upshot here is that the first column (for the date 19th March 2019) is correct. But on the 20th, the day after, there is something which is leading to skewed results - the reason being the adjustment applied to sidereal time is too large and moves into the previous/next day when offset from transit...

The clue I see is that as per the Meeus book, he states that the Right Ascension results calculated should be in the range -180..+180. It is this, on the second column of the results which skews into the negative range for the step (D+1 (Tomorrow) Right Ascension), and may then be skewing the subsequent results whereby the resulting time adjustment to transit is 25.170655036714184 hours....

So I would be hugely grateful if anyone could help me isolate the specific step in relation to Meeus calculations, such that I may then be able to get past this challenge.

Again please bear in mind I have no math/astro background and have come at this with a coding ability and the Meeus book... :-)

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    $\begingroup$ Being the developer of the Obj-C, Swift and Javascript frameworks of Jean Meus' book on GitHub (with the help of AA+ of P.J. Naughter), I would encourage you to publish your ruby code, even in a very alpha state. It would be easier to help and contribute. I'd happy to do so. See github.com/onekiloparsec/SwiftAA $\endgroup$
    – onekiloparsec
    Commented Nov 6, 2019 at 8:17
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    $\begingroup$ As @onekiloparsec notes, it would be helpful to share your code, even if it's only so we can help debug it $\endgroup$
    – user21
    Commented Nov 6, 2019 at 16:27
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    $\begingroup$ Yeah makes sense - I’ll do that. I wasn’t sure if this forum is code related like stackoverflow, but I’m more than happy to put the code into the article. $\endgroup$
    – Stew
    Commented Nov 6, 2019 at 18:45
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    $\begingroup$ If you want to stick with Meeus, that's fine, but you might look at the CSPICE library I mention in: astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/13488 $\endgroup$
    – user21
    Commented Nov 8, 2019 at 1:12
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    $\begingroup$ In AA, Meeus says the delta_m value "[is a] small quantit[y], in most cases being between -0.01 and +0.01". I notice that your value for delta_m on March 20 is 0.07815. Out of curiosity, did you repeat the calculation as he suggests? $\endgroup$
    – Ugo
    Commented Aug 23, 2020 at 10:32

2 Answers 2

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You might like to try looking at the (hopefully well documented) JavaScript code of "Astron", https://friendsofthevigilance.org.uk/Astron/Astron.html

Whilst primarily for sextant users, the home page also lists rise, transit and set times for the selected body, calculated using Meeus' formulae. (It also allows for entered altitude, eye height, refraction and limb.) You will see that, for 2019.03.20 a Moon transit of "none" is listed. Times are in Ship's time / local time, so be sure to enter the correct UTC, Time zone and Daylight Saving.)

Whilst coding this, I found that I needed to analyse times for TWO days before and after the subject day in order to avoid the effect you encountered. The downloadable user notes explain how to access the source code.

Regards, Bill Ritchie. PS... In settings, set "Moon Calculation Method" to "Basic" to use Meeus' data. "Normal" uses a more accurate 3691 term version of the ELP/MPP02 lunar theory.

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This is not an answer, just a comment

The Moon doesn't necessarily rise and set every day. Your results are a little suspicious, but not necessarily wrong. I read:

   Rise @ [2019-03-20 16:37:59 +0000]   WRONG TIME
Transit @ [2019-03-21 01:09:54 +0000]   WRONG DAY
    Set @ [2019-03-19 22:15:00 +0000]   WRONG DAY

as saying the Moon set at about 10:15pm on the 19th. It stayed down for over 18 hours (that part is suspicious) and rose again on the 20th at 4:37pm. Since it was down for the those 18 hours, it didn't transit during that time. If you added "lowest point" (anti-transit), it would occur between set and rise.

Finally, after rising on 4:37pm on the 20th, the moon transits at 1:10am on the 21st.

So, the moon didn't set or transit at all on the 20th: it set at 10:15pm the night before, was still down at midnight, and remained down until 4:37pm. It then rose, but its next transit and setting time were on the 21st, not the 20th.

In other words, your set times are before your rise times, so the order is set-rise-transit, not rise-transit-set as would be the case for the Sun.

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    $\begingroup$ Thanks for the comment @barrycarter and yes I’m aware of that kind of event - seen more commonly with a missing rise or set event which has rolls into the prior/next day. On this occasion however the gaps are too wide based on typical spread - and when I checked with other websites - it confirmed that I have totally incorrect results only on that date. I’ve isolated the problem as far as the transit declination (I think) but as mentioned just don’t have enough knowledge to plot the corrective adjustment... $\endgroup$
    – Stew
    Commented Nov 5, 2019 at 20:02
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    $\begingroup$ To be more precise on the 20th the Moonset should be 06:18, then as you say it passes though nadir aka anti-transit, and then rises at 17:24, and then only reaches transit/culmination in the early hours of the next calendar day $\endgroup$
    – Stew
    Commented Nov 5, 2019 at 20:08

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