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I have not seen any very good presentation regarding explaining and calculating the Equation of Time, and so this presentation was composed. I had also noticed that the only available programs that try to calculate the Equation of Time tend to sometimes be wrong by half a minute. In practical terms, this is probably acceptable, since the image of the Sun is so large (about half a degree) that sundial shadows with sharp edges cannot exist, and that it is not easy to try to tell sundial time better than to the nearest half minute anyway!
But as a Physicist, I find it annoying when really poor quality information is provided to the public! It was actually possible to create the calculator to far greater accuracy than this calculator is set up to do, nearly in the millionth of a second range, but even Physicists recognize overkill! So it was decided that a reasonably reliable accuracy of around one one-hundredth of a second, valid for several thousand years either in the past or future was sufficient for this presentation. If you need greater accuracy, derive it yourself!
When clocks were invented around 500 years ago, and then greatly improved in accuracy around 250 years ago, the design of those mechanisms were all based on processes that occurred at precisely accurate and repeatable intervals. And so it was natural that the length of a day or hour or year was DEFINED as a specific interval of time. This was a wonderful advance but it caused some minor errors when it was used to try to calculate where the Sun or Moon might be at any moment! In fact, around November 3 of each year, the two clocks are different by more than 16 minutes! Around February 12, they are different by about 14 minutes in the opposite direction!
The fact that Mariners needed to accurately know the time in order to determine their Longitude and Latitude, made this a serious issue to deal with! Since that was the only use of really accurate timekeeping, the number that we now call the Equation of Time was initially defined as always being in one direction, based on the operation of ships. Much later, when accurate time became useful for business and commerce, the current definition was adopted, where the True Sun is sometimes ahead of and sometimes behind clock time.
We will call Mean Solar Time as being what we call clock time (with Mean meaning Average), and we will call Apparent Solar Time as being the time which should be true based on the apparent location of the Sun at that instant. In a more technical way, we define the first as being the Hour Angle of the Mean Sun and the second as the Hour Angle of the True Sun. The Mean Sun is fictitious, and is defined as moving with uniform angluar speed along the Celestial Equator.
These can equally be defined as the Right Ascensions of the Mean Sun and the True Sun.
The Equation of Time continuously varies throughout the year, from the combined effect of two primary causes. (There ARE many very tiny effects which also exist, mostly due to gravitational perturbation effects of other planets, and some interesting consequences of the Moon's motion, but they are generally very tiny effects and mostly considered to simply be perturbations of the two primary effects, which we will discuss later.)
According to modern definitions, if the Equation of Time is a positive number, that means that a sundial would give a time that was FAST.
The two primary causes of variation are the varying speed of the Earth in its orbit due to the eccentricity of that orbit (and Kepler and Newton's analysis of the speed variations which result); and due to the fact that the Earth's rotational axis is tilted to the plane of its orbit, which is called the Obliquity of the Ecliptic, which is essentially a geometric factor. We will consider them separately.
The apparent motion of the True Sun is in accordance to the Earth moving in an ellipse and in therefore obeying with Kepler's law of equal areas. The effect is that the apparent True Sun moves in an equivalent ellipse, with the Earth located at one of the foci of that ellipse.
Near perihelion, the True Sun has GREATER angular velocity than the Intermediary Sun (due to that law of equal areas), and the True Sun therefore quickly moves ahead of the Intermediary Sun. This makes the Equation of Time a positive quantity at that time.
The difference between the positions of these two Suns continues to increase, until the point where the Sun's actual apparent speed has dropped to its mean value (again, the law of areas, now where the radius of the orbit has become its mean value). This occurs when the Earth is near the end of the minor axis of its orbit, around the first few days of April each year. At this time, the contribution of Eccentricity to the Equation of Time is at its maximum positive value.
After this date, the True Sun continues to slow up (again in accordance to the law of equal areas) until when the Earth is at Aphelion, it has slowed to the point of exactly then again being at the same point in the sky as the Intermediary Sun. This obviously means that the Eccentricity contribution to the Equation of Time is exactly zero then, about on July 4 of each year, at Aphelion.
The second half of the orbit has the True Sun LAGGING the Intermediary Sun in essentially similar ways. The maximum lag occurs around October 3 of each year, where the Eccentricity contribution to the Equation of Time is most negative.
For an orbit that has great eccentricity, this mathematical problem is actually immensely difficult! In fact, it is referred to as Kepler's Problem, and no one has yet solved it with precise accuracy! There have been several solutions to Kepler's Problem presented, such as by LaGrange in around 1770. In 1816, Bessel discovered the exact form of the solution (as an infinite series). A number of computer-calculated solutions, generally based on Bessel's analysis, are pretty accurate now. The fact that the Earth has a rather circular orbit allows many simplifications in getting an APPROXIMATE solution for our purposes. Putting that another way, Bessel's infinite series converges very quickly because of the nearly circular orbit.
As a first approximation, we know that when at Perihelion, the Earth is closer to the Sun by the eccentricity of 0.017, in other words, 0.983 its average distance. Given Kepler's Law of equal areas, we can easily determine the maximum velocity of the Earth when at Perihelion. At Perihelion, the very narrow triangle is SHORTER by that factor and so it is therefore WIDER by the same factor, to have the same area. That means that the velocity of the Earth is then 1.017 (actually, 1/0.983) times its average velocity. So during about the first day after Perihelion, when the Intermediary Earth proceeds exactly one (Mean) degree in its orbit, the True Earth must advance 1.01729 degree, or about 1º1'2". But this angular distance is along an instantaneous circle of a slightly smaller radius, so in just the first day after Perihelion, the True Sun advances a distance which represents about 7.9 seconds of time FARTHER than the Intermediary Sun does.
This effect obviously reduces to zero by about 91 days later, and we might estimate that the path was close enough to being circular to allow some simplifications, such as assuming that this dependence is exactly sinusoidal. That is not technically true, but it is pretty close, and this results in a MAXIMUM amount of the Eccentricity contribution at about seven and a half minutes of time.
General form of Bessel's solution;
E is the Eccentric Anomaly and M is the Mean Anomaly. It is also commonly referred to as a Kapteyn series.
Bessel's method can be used to obtain a more accurate value, and that gives a maximum contribution of the (current) Eccentricity as being 7min38.3sec. (Keep in mind that the eccentricity of the Earth's orbit is constantly slowly changing, and so this value also therefore changes over centuries. Even over a period of days, as is seen in the Calculator below. Keep in mind also that the other planets cause perturbations which cause our orbit to slowly be rotating around, and so our Line of Apsides, which defines the location of our Perihelion also moves around slowly [advancing], so the day and hour we might assign to Perihelion passage gradually change. These comments are made to remind the reader that for the Equation of Time to be accurately applied to distant times in the past or future, then corrections to those orbital parameters must be made.)
This effect is fairly close to being sinusoidally shaped, so the Eccentricity contribution might be (approximately) given by the sine of the (day number minus three [to identify where in the orbit we are as compared to the location of our Perihelion, assuming that the Perihelion occurred on January 3 ] divided by 365.25 times 360), times the maximum time contribution we just derived.
(Lasker 1986, 1999 and 2004)
We are currently headed for a minimum eccentricity (nearly circular) which should occur around 29,000 AD, when the eccentricity is then around 0.0023, around 1/7 of the current eccentricity.
The above discussion shows that the Intermediary Sun does NOT move at a uniform rate around the Ecliptic, but for the moment, ignore those Eccentricity effects and assume that it does. The Mean Sun, upon which our clock system is based, moves at constant speed along the Celestial Equator. We will additionally assume that these two (both imaginary) Suns would be in the exact same spot at the instant of the Vernal Equinox (around March 21).
Given that we intend to focus on the projection of both on the Celestial Equator, and the Mean Sun is already there, it is clear that the AVERAGE speed of the Intermediary Sun is necessarily FASTER than that of the Mean Sun. (The total distance it has to cover, along the Ecliptic, is longer than the projected distance along the Equator, by a simple geometric effect.) This fact has some importance.
Imagine the situation a brief time (here just over one day) later. The Intermediary Sun will have moved 1º at its constant speed along the SLANTED Ecliptic, which would have a Right Ascension change which is slightly less (due to the cosine of the angle of the Ecliptic to the Celestial Equator.) It is the PROJECTION of the movement along the Ecliptic ON the Equator. The Mean Sun, even though it is actually moving slightly more slowly, will have moved 1º ahead along the Equator. This results in the Mean Sun going ahead of the Intermediary Sun. This causes a NEGATIVE contribution to the Equation of time at this moment. During that first degree of travel, approximately one day, the total effect of these TWO factors (the difference in the average speed of the two and the projection losses of the Mean Sun due to the angle of the Ecliptic) is about 20.3 seconds of equivalent time.
Consider about three months later, at the Summer Solstice. BOTH have necessarily advanced by exactly 90º, one along the Celestial Equator and the other along the Ecliptic. They are now moving in exactly parallel paths, parallel to the Equator, and so they have gotten to the exact same Right Ascension. They are NOT now moving at the same speed, with the Intermediary Sun necessarily moving somewhat faster (gaining around 20.3 seconds of equivalent time each day) (for having to travel the larger total path length by this analysis).
After this moment, the Intermediary Sun starts moving back downward along the angle of the Ecliptic, and so the Mean Sun starts gaining on it, which causes a POSITIVE contribution to the Equation of Time, which continues for about three months, until the Autumnal Equinox. Their Right Ascensions are again identical then, and in fact they would be in the same spot in the sky.
The second half of the year repeats this pattern. It results in FOUR times when the Obliquity of the Ecliptic does not result in any contribution to the Equation of Time (at the instants of the Equinoxes and the instants of the Solstices), and two periods of positive contributions and two periods of negative contributions.
This curve shape is also extremely close to being sinusoidal, with the acknowledgement that there are many tiny effects that we have ignored in this simplified analysis. It is pretty easily calculated, by simply determining the entire annual path length and dividing by 365.25 to determine the AVERAGE Mean Sun speed and the AVERAGE Intermediary Sun speed, and then calculating the geometric factor to know the projected length along the Celestial Equator of the motion of the Intermediary Sun along the tilted Ecliptic. This all results in a greatest contribution to the Equation of Time from the Obliquity component as being (currently) around 9min52.5sec.
(Lasker 1986 and 1999)
Lasker has calculated that there was a maximum of the Obliquity of 24º14'07" in about the year 7530 BC and that there will be a minimum of the Obliquity of 22º36'41" in about the year 12,030 AD. These values are in close agreement with what this calculator produces.
If your sundial is located at exactly 92 degrees West Longitude, then it is exactly eight minutes later that the Sun crosses your Meridian, which means that an 8min0.0sec adjustment must always be made for that location. In the Summer, an hour correction may also be necessary if the Civil Time uses Daylight Savings Time.
The reality is that this is actually irrelevant! The SIZE of the image of the Sun is large enough to take about two minutes to pass any point in the sky, so the shadow cast by a (normal) sundial CANNOT be very sharply defined! It is always fuzzy-edged, with a resulting sundial accuracy limit of at best about half of one minute either way.
Of course, it is possible to use a lens in a much larger sundial structure, and then only pay attention to the leading edge of the Sun's image, and for such a device, these smaller corrections can become important.
We know that perihelion occurs early in January each year, defining the instant when the Earth is closest to the Sun in its orbit. The date shifts back and forth several days due to the Leap Year effect, which is actually due to a quirk in our calendar system.
A useful formula for determining the approximate date of perihelion for the Earth is:
JDE = 2451547.507 + 365.2596358 * k - 0.0000000156 * k2
where k is an integer. If k is less than 0 then the perihelion found will be prior to the year 2000 AD. If k is 0 or greater, then the perihelion is after the beginning of 2000 AD.
For example, if a value of k = -10 is chosen, the JDE from this formula is 2447894.911 which corresponds to January 3.41, 1990.
This is moderately accurate for the perihelion of the BARYCENTER of the Earth-Moon system, but in that year, the positions of the Earth and Moon were such that the correct instant FOR THE EARTH was actually around 31 hours later! There ARE corrections which can be made based on this orbital motion of the Moon, which can involve as few as five extra terms, and which then provide an answer which is only one hour off for 1990 and generally around three hours error on average. Those corrections can be made far more involved, to also correct for the eccentricity of the Moon's orbit, the Regression of the Nodes of the Moon's orbit and the advance of the line of apsides of the Moon's orbit, to calculate values which are within around one minute, but there are many hundreds of terms which must be calculated in those corrections.
However, there are MANY other (smaller) effects which also affect the precise accuracy of ALL of the numbers discussed in this presentation. An interesting example is that both Jupiter and Saturn have enough mass to affect the exact position of the Sun during their orbits, by the effects of each of their separate barycenters with the Sun. Specifically, there are years when Saturn and Jupiter are in Conjunction, where they are both on the same side of the Sun and therefore their contributions to their mutual barycenter cause the position of the Sun to have to shift a maximum amount the other way. There are other times when they are in Opposition where their effects on their mutual barycenter compete and the position of the Sun is nearest the actual barycenter of the Solar System. This sort of effect takes around 20 Earth years to cycle, and it occurs at different times of the Earth's orbital motion, so there is a longer-term, somewhat complex dance of an effect on the Earth's exact perihelion time! Neptune has an even more strange situation regarding this effect, where the barycenter effects due to Jupiter and Saturn often cause Neptune to have TWO perihelions per orbit, and they can be around ten years apart, both being around five YEARS off from the simplified calculation of the perihelion!
Additionally, these equations are somewhat simplified in assuming that the planets have unperturbed elliptical orbits, that they are not each all affecting all the other planets' orbits. If the effects of all the thousands of different perturbations are included for the Earth, the calculations become extremely complex. Even relatively simple corrections require many thousands of terms in the calculations. Just listing the values of the multipliers for the terms takes around 60 published pages! For the purposes of this discussion, that did not seem necessary or appropriate here.
And finally, there are various other interesting effects! For example, in 1246 AD, the Earth's perihelion coincided with the Winter Solstice, and the Equation of Time curve was exactly symmetrical!
This program calculates the Obliquity of the Ecliptic accurate to within 0.01 second of arc for 1000 AD to 3000 AD, and within a few seconds of arc for 8,000 BC to 12,000 AD. It calculates the Eccentricity of the Earth's orbit accurate to 9 places in near times and to 8 places within 10,000 years.
Corrections are made for leap years and leap days, and also for many effects of Nutation. The Equation of Time, at Noon on the day chosen, should be accurate to about 0.01 second, within a thousand years and fairly accurately beyond that. Correction still needs to be made for the Geographic Longitude of a sundial and for Daylight Savings Time.
This calculator automatically sets for today's date. Click on the year, month or date to then change it for any other date and then click Calculate.
E = 9.87 * sin(2*B) - 7.53 * cos(B) - 1.5 * sin(B)
where
B = (360/365) * (N - 81)
where
N is the day number in the year, with January 1 meaning N = 1.
This gives E, the Equation of Time, APPROXIMATELY, in decimal minutes.
( http://mb-soft.com/index.html )
C Johnson, Physicist, Physics Degree from Univ of Chicago