BAIT: precess command

NAME

precess - calculates astronomical precession of the equinoxes

SYNOPSIS

precess [to=yyyy] [date=dd/mm/yyyy] [help]

DESCRIPTION

This program reads the standard input which expects three fields separated by blanks with

hh:mm:sss dd:mm:ss yyyy [rest of line]

coordinates of the input and prints to stdout the precessed values in the same format with the third field being the `to' epoch and the rest of line passed thru without comment.

If the to flag is not specified, then the current equinox (derived from the system clock) is assumed.

The program uses the matrix method of precession.

OPTIONS

to=yyyy - the decimal year of the equinox of the output coordinates.

date=dd/mm/yyyy - an alternative way of specifying the year

BUGS

The epoch year must be between 1902 - 2038 since time is handled as a long integer.