4 ms·
That's literally not true, since we astronomers do use UTC as it is intended (since within 0.9s of the correct time is good enough, but being many seconds off i
by welterde 4y ago
That's literally not true, since we astronomers do use UTC as it is intended (since within 0.9s of the correct time is good enough, but being many seconds off isn't anymore for many applications).
The argument that the legacy systems should maybe be updated is already being discussed elsewhere, so no need to rehash that.
- ncmncm 4y agoIf you are doing astronomy with UTC, you are Doing Astronomy Wrong. Have a chat with a colleague. They will set you straight.
- welterde 4y agoHardly. For actually observing with a telescope UT1 is the correct time scale to start the calculation from, since it's directly linked with Earth's rotation - with some complications that you have to calculate local sidereal time and so forth, but this only involves fixed constants; All TAI derived fixed-offset time scales are not linked with Earth's rotation and thus require constantly updated offsets. For most telescopes approximating it with UTC gives good enough results (pointing accuracy wise), so that's what many observatories do. And many smaller and older observatories operate quite a lot of legacy hardware and software that would need to be updated if the current UTC definition were to be changed.