Hi Ernst,
If understand correctly Kala uses RA to calculate nakshatras rather than ecliptic longitude but if I put 30/7/2025 14:33:51 into Kala this is the exact moment that the moon moves into Chitra but Kala says the Moon has an RA of 193:33 but Chitra's RA is 201.6333
TIA,
Radha
I'm curious what timezone that time is in?
Also, for right ascension, is that the column labelled "RectAs." in the planetary information table?
Also, how did you determine the RA for Chitra?
...I guess this is obvious, but Kala has many options for calculating nakshatras, so I'm assuming you are talking about when using Dhruva GC mid-Mula with equatorial coordinates?
When you say Chitra'a RA is 201.6333, you are talking about the star itself? The star also called Spica. Yes, it's RA is 201.633 according to Stellarium, but the nakshtra Chitra is not the star Chitra...the nakshatra Chitra is 13'20 portion of space around the celestial sphere (using Dhruva)...which contains the star Chitra.. So the Moon passed the boundary of the nakshtra at the time, but was not conjunct Chitra.
The star Chitra does not begin the nakshtra Chitra; the star is a few degrees within the boundary of the nakshatra.
@j0sh4rp3 timezone is GMT+2. Ok so then the Moon should enter Chitra nakshatra at 201.633 - 6.66 which is 194.96 but its entering at 193.55, so a 1.5 degrees difference
Then Chitra star must not be precisely in the middle of Chitra nakshtra, just somewhere inside it. Maybe Chitra star is about 8.26 degrees or so inside the boundary of Chitra nakshatra.
You can find out for sure by finding the starting point of Chitra nakshtara:
find the right ascension of the galactic center. That is the 6'40 of Mula, then go back 6'40 of RA to find the beginning of Mula, then just go back 13'20 from there however many times to find the beginning of Chitra.
@j0sh4rp3 If i set Kala to the first second of Mula in UTC+2 that is 2025/8/5 2:13:55. According to Kala the Moons RA is 260.162 and Shaula(lambda scorpii) which is the supposed to be middle of Mula is at 263.842 so a 3.6 difference but I would expect 6.66. Is Shaula the correct star?
Shaula is not the star that Dhruva Galactic Center middle of Mula is based on.
It is very close. Dhruva GC mid-Mula is based on the Galactic Center. So the Galactic Center is at 6'40 of Mula...everything else is determined from that.
Shaula is at 263.842 of RA, the Galactic Center is at 266.8.
So Shaula is near the middle of Mula, but the GC is the precise middle of Mula.
The Galactic Center is not a star, so this ayanamsha is not basd on the position of a star. The whole point is that the Galactic Center is fixed. Shaula, Chitra, etc. move...very slowly from our perspective but over hundreds of thousands of years they would still move, but the GC won't.
I found the RA of the Galactic Center using Stellarium. It is not a proper object, just a marker.
Here is a screenshot with GC and Shaula circled.
@j0sh4rp3 Stellerium does have the Galactic center its called "Minispiral in Gal Center" and it is 6.66 degrees away from the Moon when Kala says it enters Mula. Exactly where it should be. Thanks a lot for your help.
THe Dhruva ayanamsa does not use chitra as a star of any significant, so its not trying to put chitra at 180RA. It makes no sense to use a star for this purpose. I use the galactic center which is the fixed point in our galactic, chitra is not fixed, neither is any other star. Those stars will be gone before the galactic center is gone. Some will be gone before our star the Sun is gone. And those stars do have motion, very slowly.