
LUNAR PERIGEES AND APOGEES CALCULATOR FOR THE
8999-YEAR RANGE FROM 1000 AD to 9998 AD

By Jay Tanner - 2021
PHP v7.4.9

Since the release of the NASA/JPL Horizons on-line API in July of 2021, I've
been trying to test it out for making special general-purpose ephemerides.

The web interface does a good job, but the tables it produces can be a bit
bulky, so, instead of using the web interface, I decided to make a special
purpose ephemerides using PHP v7 with their API to do it more directly
with some customizations.

The first program I've made so far is a lunar apogee and perigee calculator
for an entire year with some basic features.

The computations include the local Julian Dates, calendar dates and times and
distances of all lunar perigees and apogees for any given year from 1000 to
9998 and any given time zone offset from UT.

Times prior to 1962 are based on UT1 and from 1962 onward UTC is used.

The distances may be output in kilometers (default) or miles.

I've put the program in the public domain for anyone to copy, use, modify and
study for learning how to use the NASA/JPL Horizons API.

There are still a few minor bugs that show up from time to time, mostly due
to some erroneous time zone argument handling. Some abnormal time zone values
will cause crashes if certain characters are entered. Valid input should give
valid output.

I plan to create some specialized ephemerides when I get more experienced at
using the NASA/JPL Horizons on-line API.


