The Astronomical Almanac

The Astronomical Almanac contains a wide variety of both technical and general astronomical information. The book is a worldwide resource for fundamental astronomical data. It is a joint publication of the U.S. Nautical Almanac Office and Her Majesty's Nautical Almanac Office in the UK, and contains data supplied by many scientists from around the world.

The history of The Astronomical Almanac is found here.

The material appears in sections, each section addressing a specific astronomical category. The book also includes references to the material, explanations, and examples. It is available one year in advance of its date.

Contents of The Astronomical Almanac:

• Section A: PHENOMENA
  information on the seasons, phases of the Moon, configurations of the planets, eclipses, transits of Mercury or Venus, sunrise/set, moonrise/set times, and times for twilight. Preprints of many of these data appear in the Astronomical Phenomena.
• Section B: TIME-SCALES AND COORDINATE SYSTEMS
  calendar information, relationships between time scales, universal and sidereal times, definitions of the various celestial coordinate systems, the position and velocity of the Earth, and coordinates of Polaris. Preprints of many of these data appear in the Astronomical Phenomena.
• Section C: SUN
  detailed positional information on the Sun, including the ecliptic and equatorial coordinates, physical ephemerides, geocentric rectangular coordinates, times of transit, and the equation of time.
• Section D: MOON
  detailed positional information on the Moon including phases, mean elements of the orbit and rotation, lengths of mean months, ecliptic and equatorial coordinates, librations, and physical ephemerides.
• Section E: PLANETS AND PLUTO
  detailed positional information on each of the major planets including osculating orbital elements, heliocentric ecliptic and geocentric equatorial coordinates, and physical ephemerides.
• Section F: SATELLITES OF THE PLANETS AND PLUTO
  positional information on the satellites of Mars, Jupiter, Saturn (including the rings), Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.
• Section G: MINOR PLANETS AND COMETS
  positional information on periodic comets and the largest minor planets, including magnitudes and dates of opposition.
• Section H: STARS AND STELLAR SYSTEMS
  mean places for bright stars, double stars, UBVRI standards, ubvy and H β standards, spectrophotometric standards, radial velocity standards, bright galaxies, open clusters, globular clusters, x-ray sources, radio sources, quasars, pulsars, variable stars, and gamma ray sources.
• Section J: OBSERVATORIES
  world wide index of observatory names, places, and instrumentation in alphabetical order by country.
• Section K: TABLES AND DATA
  Julian dates, selected astronomical constants, relations between time scales, and coordinates of the celestial pole.
• Section L: NOTES AND REFERENCES
  notes on the data and references for source material found in the volume.
• Section M: GLOSSARY
  terms and definitions for many of the words and phrases.
• Section N: INDEX

Some links of interest for The Astronomical Almanac:

• Page iv of each edition contains newly-discovered errata. These, and up-to-date errata, are also found on The Astronomical Almanac Online.
• Ordering Information contains instructions on how to order the The Astronomical Almanac.
• The Depository Libraries around the United States often retain a reference copy for each year of publication.
• The Explanatory Supplement to the Astronomical Almanac is a detailed reference volume to The Astronomical Almanac. The last edition was in 1992. The Explanatory Supplement is available from University Science Books.