Introduction to the 12-Year Lunar Ephemeris

NASA Reference Publication 1349
Twelve Year Planetary Ephemeris: 1995 - 2006
Fred Espenak
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Planetary Systems Branch

This information is from the NASA GSFC 12-Year Geocentric Ephemeris of the Moon. Artemis Society International Members have had a lot of difficulty with access to the GSFC site, so we are duplicating the ephemeris tables here in the Artemis Data Book.

Definitions

Column  Heading      Definition/Description
          
     1      Date          Calendar Date (Gregorian). 
           (0 DT)         All ephemeris positions are for 00:00:00 DT
                          (Terrestrial Dynamical Time).     

     2       RA           Apparent Right Ascension of Moon for the true equinox of
          (h  m  s)       date (hours, minutes, seconds).

     3      Dec           Apparent Declination of Moon for the true equinox of date
          (d  '  ")      (degrees, arcminutes, arcseconds).

     4      Dist          Distance of the Moon in units of 103
          (1000*km)       kilometers.

     5      H.P.          Equatorial Horizontal Parallax of the Moon (arcseconds).
            (")

     6      Diam          Apparent Angular Diameter of the Moon (arcseconds).
            (")

     7    Libration       Lunar Libration (optical + physical) in Longitude
              l           (degrees).     

     8    Libration       Lunar Libration (optical + physical) in Latitude
              b           (degrees).

     9    Libration       Lunar Libration (optical + physical) in Position Angle
              c           (degrees).

     10     Sun           Sun's Selenographic Colongitude or lunar longitude of
           Colng          morning terminator (degrees).

     11     P.A.          Position Angle of the midpoint of the Moon's bright limb,
            Limb          measured eastwards (counter-clockwise) from the celestial
                          north point of the lunar disk (degrees).

     12     Age           Age of the Moon, measured from the instant of New Moon
          (days)          (days).

     13    Phase          Fractional illuminated area (and diameter) of the
                          apparent disk of the Moon.

     14    Solar          Solar Elongation of the Moon. Defined as the angular
           Elong          position of the Moon with respect to the Sun (degrees).
                          'E' is east (evening sky) and 'W' is west (morning sky).

NASA Reference Publication 1349 was last revised on 25 July 1996.