[Kstars-devel] Re: kstars engine?

[Henry de Valence]

On 1 October 2010 17:39, Akarsh Simha <akarshsimha at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 10/01/2010 01:34 PM, karinqe wrote:
>> > Hi,
>> > is there any info about the algorithms the engine uses to predict the
>> > motions of planets? How do you "solve" the N-body problem? How precise
>> > is it? What do you take into account?
>> > I'll look into the code later for more specific information, but now
>> > I'm just trying to find out which algorithms are often used in
>> > applications like kstars and don't have enough time to search in the
>> > source :(
>> > Could you please give me some hints?
>> >
>> > (I'm doing a Bachalor's thesis on the N-body problem...well, at least
>> > I'm starting)
>
> Hi Karin
>
> If you are interested in generic numerical integration, though, you
> should take a look at Step. Step uses a rather simple algorithm (I
> forgot what it's called), but you might want to use 4th order or 5th
> order "Runge-Kutta" method. (I've just heard about these from my
> friend). Apparently it is far better.
>
> Regards
> Akarsh

Here is a page that may be of interest: a survey of common n-body
numerical integration methods.

http://www.amara.com/papers/nbody.html
This also includes citations to relevant research papers. If you are
at a university or have access to one you should be able to get all of
them; otherwise you will probably only be able to view some of them.

Cheers,
Henry de Valence

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