Cosmos

Quote of the day...

Cosmos update: we have been silent for a while, surely... But our users keep coming - kindly and smoothly - to use our free Astronomy web services and resources, just for plain old celestial observation or pure research. Our website has changed - as times changed. We choose a new look, and are restarting Cosmos with a brand new planetary theory - DE601 (read bellow).
We'll make all the efforts for the user/reader enjoy the ride in the world of Astronomy, Math and Celestial Mechanics. Thank you very much for being with us for all this time - since 2003.

Cosmos was/is the first Portuguese ephemerides server, and has currently implemented the last planetary theory from JPL/NASA, DE601, developed by Dr. E. Myles Standish, covering a time span of a little bit more than 157.000 years of ephemerides of the Sun, Moon, planets and Pluto. Still, it also covers the earlier theories (DE200, DE405 – used in the elaboration of the Astronomical Almanac – DE406 and DE431) including the last important release, DE408, with a 10.000 years time span and a similar accuracy to DE406. In our server you will find the most accurate planetary and stellar positions in the sky. Enjoy yourself.

In the previous version of Cosmos, you could compute the local circumstances of solar and lunar eclipses, from 2000 BC to 3000 AD using the tables given by Meeus and Espenak. This application is not implemented since it's outdated.
However, a new model of computation was developed allowing the user to search and find specific information about all the eclipses over an expanded period of time - a little bit more than 157 thousands of years.
Please lookup for the old and brand new Eclipse tool in our Main Applications page. Enjoy :)

Other useful and interesting online applications have been recently implemented at Cosmos new release, namely:

- Rises, Transits, Sets and general information regarding the solar system bodies
- Monthly Sky Events and Sky Events Search (historical time span)
- Orbital Osculating Elements
- General Astronomy and Math applications
- And much more yet to come...

Cosmos now sustains a geographical wide database of the main cities and astronomical observatories all over the world - almost 4.2 million places, with additional information like time zone, latitude, longitude and district.
A small quick Atlas is available in the major applications, with about 600 main places. We hope to improve this work as time goes by. Give us your feedback please.

You might still want to take a look at our main articles, and News feeds in real time. Just explore the remodeled website and please give us some feedback about it so we can improve it the best way we can. :)

Use our resource tools to get general or specific help and information, like:

- Post your questions in our Forum. You might find constant help there - from us or other users and/or experts.

- Newsletter: keep yourself informed with the main events regarding our website or any other valuable news signing up our mail list/newsletter.

- Contact us without hesitating if you have any question or doubt. We'll get back to you as soon as possible.