Comparison of Instruments and Methods of Positional Observations of the Sun and Major Planets

PLANETS, a Common MAO and INASAN Database

“…At the same time, internal estimates derived for instrumental series appear to be more reliable since they result from the same mathematical procedures applied to all series. Different approaches to accuracy estimates have been suggested at an early stage of the database operation (Kharin 1986). Finally, a more general approach has been developed (Kolesnik 1995, Kharin et al 1996 making it possible to estimate both systematic and random errors for a given series and assign to it a weight, which is objective in the internal and external sense.…”

“…The global approach combining observations of a large number of series has been applied, and fairly consistent corrections for all three objects have been obtained. Many other investigations were performed using the data that had been collected (Kharin 1986, Kharin et al 1987. In brief, the history of the database operation has had two stages.…”