Using mathematical formulas in space exploration

[Challenger007]

I was interested in this question: are any of you engaged in observing celestial bodies? I recently bought myself a Celestron portable refractor telescope, with which I want to travel out of town on clear nights to observe celestial bodies. In the course of my observations, I really want to calculate the trajectory on my own, without using ready-made formulas and calculations of displacement. Anyone else besides me is interested in this? I think it would be a cool experience.

[ICN5D]

Oh yes. I'm guilty of this. A few decades ago, I bought a meade lxd-55 10" schmidt-newtonian reflector. Definitely busted it out at a number of gatherings to blow people's minds with saturn and jupiter. But, way before that, I checked out this neat book from a library called Practical Astronomy with your Calculator .

It has equations like you can't even imagine. There's this one exercise where you can calculate the sunrise/sunset times based entirely off of lat/long/alt and orbital parameters. It's a lengthy and insane calculation, but amazing that it can even be done (to no surprise).

[Challenger007]

Great! Thanks for the answer. Of course, a complex formula is not easy. but on the other hand, in this forum we are not talking about 2 + 2, but about things much deeper and more complex.