MJD - not acceptable according to IAU (?)

[Paul Schlyter]

In article <Pine.3.89.9607051404.S15993-0100000 at poseidon.ifctr.mi.cnr.it>,
Lucio Chiappetti  <lucio at ifctr.mi.cnr.it> wrote:
 
> On 4 Jul 1996, Paul Schlyter wrote:
> 
> > There are more serious ambuiguities involved here though.  MJD is
> > often used, by various people, as any day count, starting at any day
> > they feel is suitable.  And even JD is subject to this: the NORAD
> > people, who keep track of all our artificial satellites, have their
> > own definition of JD. 
>   [...]
> > The NORAD "JD" is simply a count of the number of days into the year, and
> > it's reset to 1 at the beginning of each new year.
> 
>   I've often seen on various (non-astronomical) newsgroups people
>   talking of "Julian Day number" as the number of days in the year.
>   Since I think this is inexact and to be DEPRECATED, I usually respond
>   to such pointing telling them that this is NOT JD (the 244.... thing)
>   but should be called something else.
 
This can be expected among non-specialists.  But I was quite
disappointed to find out that this erroneous use of JD was common in
a space agency!!!
 

This discussion has become off-topic for sci.astri.fits though --
followups to sci.astro

-- 
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Paul Schlyter,  Swedish Amateur Astronomer's Society (SAAF)
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