NavList:

Alex, of Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal, you wrote:
"I wonder whether he has anything to do with the almanac"

I wouldn't be surprised if they invite him to press events. :) Whether he shows up or not... that's another question!

The Nautical Almanac today is fundamentally the output from a piece of software. Every year, they have to update a very few numbers (delta-T especially). They may update a few cultural pages like the civil holiday lists (kept primarily on traditional grounds, I suppose) and the time zone pages (of questionable value in the Internet era). And there are one or two pages that someone has to write up annually, especially the page in the introduction on the visibility of the planets. After that it's just click the print button. Then spend a few days manually double-checking every page of the output. Finally email the file to the printers. That's about a month's work at most for one person. Anyone know how many people are employed today by HMNAO (specifically, the Nautical Almanac Office, not tide table services or other maritime data)? If it's more than two, they're over-staffed, and I'm assuming that one of the two is a purely clerical position. :)

-FER

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