Re: starship-design: Massively Distributed Computing for SETI

[Ben Franchuk <bfranchuk@jetnet.ab.ca>]

Steve VanDevender wrote:
> Any good astronomical ephemeris program should do that, for the stars
> whose proper motions are known.  There's a very nice program called
> XEphem that runs on UNIX systems.
> 
> Also, Lee, proper motion is defined as a star's average angular motion
> against the sky over a multi-year period, not any instaneous measurement
> of relative velocity.  In general the proper motion of a star has to be
> determined by observations of a star's movement over long periods,
> subtracting out various things like relativistic aberration, parallax,
> and other short-term variations in the star's apparent position.

But alas the program has the limit of about 5,000 BP ( or what ever
year 1 is for astronomers). Part of the time range I am looking
for is to 35,000 BP. No real reason other than I wonder what things
looked like during the last ice age.

-- 
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 We borrow it from our children."
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