LUNEPH : A LUNAR EPHEMERIS

version 2002

Jean CHAPRONT and Gérard FRANCOU

Paris Observatory - SYRTE - UMR 8630/CNRS
January 2003

General presentation

The lunar ephemeris LUNEPH allows to compute the geocentric coordinates of the Moon
over the time period [1950-2050], using the results of the analyses accomplished by the
"Lunar Analysis Center" ("Centre d'Analyse des Données Laser-Lune") of Paris Observatory
in collaboration of the LLR team at CERGA (Observatory of the Côte d'Azur).

It provides the spherical geocentric coordinates of the Moon: ecliptic longitude and latitude in
a frame defined with the dynamical ecliptic and the mean equinox of J2000 (in degree), and
the Earth-Moon distance (in kilometer).

The time scale which is used is the Barycentric Dynamical Time (TDB).

The increasing quality of the LLR ("Lunar Laser Ranging") observations, performed in the
recent years has contributed a lot to the improvement of the models and techniques of
analysis. The observations are presently collected by two stations, one in France (CERGA,
Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur), the other one in the United States (McDonald, Texas).

In particular our solution has allowed the fit of the orbital elements of the Moon and Earth-
Moon barycenter, the parameters of the free libration, the value of the secular deceleration in
the lunar longitude due to tidal forces, the reflector positions in a selenocentric frame and the
positioning of the LLR stations in the International Reference Frame (ITRS).

The LLR analyses have also contributed to a correction to the value of the precession constant
(UAI 1976) and a determination of the dynamical frame J2000.0 with respect to the ICRS
(International Celestial Reference System) as well as the frame related to the CEP (Celestial
Ephemeris Pole).

The lunar ephemeris LUNEPH has been established using the computational unit providing
the geocentric positions of the Moon which is used in the program performing LLR analysis,
after fitting the various parameters mentioned above.

The main interest of using this computational unit is to minimize the residuals in the
differences "Computations – Observations", during the period of time covered by LLR data
(from 1972 until now); hence, the LUNEPH ephemeris provides lunar positions in the frame
of the physical problem described by lunar observations. The ephemeris is limited in time,
covering one century [1950-2050], but of a high accuracy (a few centimeters on the Earth-
Moon distance). In case of the computation of extensive lunar ephemeredes, if one wants to
cover several centuries around J2000, it is recommended to use directly the original analytical
solution ELP/MPP02 (see below).
The construction of LUNEPH

The lunar ephemeris LUNEPH results from an entire generation of ELP solutions for the
orbital motion of the Moon, starting with ELP 2000-82 (Chapront-Touzé and Chapront, 1983)
which is at the root of various lunar solutions ELP. It is followed by ELP 2000-85 (Chapront-
Touzé and Chapront, 1985) which has extended the domain of validity, covering several
thousand years, until the last issue, ELP/MPP02 (Chapront et Francou, 2003), which takes
into account new expressions for the lunar planetary perturbations (Bidart, 2001) .

After setting the Analysis Center ("Centre d’Analyse des Données Laser-Lune") within the
department SYRTE of Paris Observatory, the improvements of the lunar solutions ELP are
closely related to the results coming from the scientific analyses of LLR data collected since
1972 (Chapront et Chapront-Touzé, 1997).

In parallel, these progresses where completed by analytical and numerical improvements of

the solution for the lunar librations (Chapront et al., 1999a) and by the fit of various
parameters which occur in the measurement of the observed round-trip of the light between
the terrestrial station and a lunar reflector (Chapront et al., 1999b, 2002).

The LUNEPH ephemeris has been constructed using the last version of the theory ELP named
ELP/MPP02. The elaboration of this semi-analytical solution for the orbital motion of the
Moon has been realized in two steps:

• The ephemeredes resulting from the basic series of ELP, including new planetary
perturbations MPP02, have been first compared to the ephemeris of the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory DE405 (Standish, 1998) on the time interval [1950-2060]. This comparison
allowed to determine numerical complements (ρ405 ) to the ELP model, and to set up a new
ephemeris "ELP/MPP02 + ρ405 " of high precision during this period of time.

• Next, this new ephemeris has been compared directly to LLR observations. Several fits
have been performed which take into account the various effects that contribute to the
light-time propagation "Station-Reflector": atmospheric delay, tidal perturbations,
relativistic corrections, motion of the tectonic plates, changes of reference frame, ... The
fits contributed finally to the solution named ELP/MPP02(LLR).

We then substitute the time argument in "ELP/MPP02(LLR) + ρ405 " and derive the lunar
ephemeris LUNEPH (version #2002). This approach has the advantage to keep the semi-
analytic formulation of the solution, in particular for an easy computation of the partials, and
preserves the highly accurate character of a numerical integration owing to the numerical
complements which are not sensible to a small change of the constants in the solution.

Table 1 shows the evolution of the residuals on the distances station-to-reflector which are
obtained by difference between the lunar ephemeris LUNEPH and the LLR observations
which have been accumulated since 1972 and collected by various LLR stations and
instruments. It appears clearly a significant gain of precision between the oldest observations
and the recent ones.
Table 1: Evolution of the residuals "Computation - Observation" on the distance station-to-
reflector

OBSERVATORY Periods of time Standard deviation of Number of observations

and instrument the residuals (cm) (Normal points)

McDONALD (Texas) 1972-1975 43.5 1487

Telescope 2.70 m 1976-1979 27.7 1035
MLRS1 1980-1986 29.1 990

CERGA (OCA) – Rubis 1984-1986 18.7 1165

HALEAKALA (Hawaï) 1987-1990 6.3 451

McDONALD (Texas) 1987-1991 5.8 232

MLRS1 1991-1995 4.6 586
MLRS2 1995-2001 3.3 1669

1987-1991 5.3 1574

CERGA (OCA) – Yag 1991-1995 3.9 2044
1995-2001 3.0 3273

Figs. 1a and 1b are comparisons of the ephemeris LUNEPH with respect to DE405, on the 3
geocentric coordinates of the Moon: longitude, latitude and distance.

The differences are of a few mas for the longitude and latitude, and less than 2 meters for the
Earth-Moon distance. The offset and the slope which appears on the graph "longitude"
(Fig.1a) correspond to a difference between the fits to DE405 and to the LLR observations on
the constants of the lunar mean longitude (0.035" on the longitude in J2000 and 0.03"/cy on
the mean motion in this variable).

3
50

2
40

LONGITUDE
1
30 DISTANCE

0
20

-1
10
LATITUDE
-2
0

-3
-10 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050
1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050

Figure 1a Figure 1b
Differences DE405 – LUNEPH in longitude and latitude (mas), and distance (meter)
Practical use of LUNEPH

The lunar ephemeris LUNEPH is expressed under the form of polynomial developments
(Chebychev polynomials) which represent the geocentric coordinates of the Moon. They
cover the time period in between Jan. 1, 1950, 0h (Julian Date 2433282.5) and Jan. 3, 2051,
0h (Julian Date 2470174.5). The complete interval is divided in 9223 consecutive sub-
intervals without overlap or discontinuity. The length of the elementary interval is
∆T = 4 days

On each sub-interval the lunar coordinates (longitude, latitude and Earth-Moon distance) are
represented by polynomials as follows:

∑ a T (x ).
n n
n

The numerical coefficients an are available on the file LUNEPH.DAT. 12 coefficients are
related to the polynomials (n=0,11).
The independent variable x is a reduced and centered time variable like t. If t is inside the
interval [t 0 , t 0 + ∆T], x is obtained with:

x = -1 + 2 (t-t0 ) / ∆T.

Tn (x) are Chebychev polynomials which can be computed easily using the following
relationships:
Tn+1 (x) = 2 x Tn (x) – Tn-1(x)
with : T0 (x) = 1 et T1 (x) = x
The first record of the file LUNEPH.DAT contains the following quantities:
T0 : Julian Date of the starting period covered by LUNEPH (2433282.5) : Jan. 1, 1950, 0h.
DT : Length of the time interval over which the polynomials are valid (4 days).
NI : Number of sub-intervals (9223).
NC : Number of coefficients (12).

The following records contain the Julian Date of the beginning of the interval of 4 days, and,
next, the coefficients of the polynomials an for the 3 coordinates (longitude, latitude,
distance).
Example: The first time interval (4 days) corresponds to the following record:

2433282.5
87.275209101629 4.583673546167 392494.735741706700
25.426596834357 0.574988016893 -7322.873917887123
0.263439612012 -0.231258072400 -129.941924509534
-0.000380713668 -0.009504518951 83.416778564356
-0.001742851127 0.000762988642 -2.860460184049
0.000046286945 0.000078604953 -0.425505411025
0.000009309742 0.000000424717 0.016529052344
0.000000075553 -0.000000469393 0.002023870882
-0.000000051718 -0.000000016260 0.000012907825
-0.000000002955 0.000000002237 -0.000008680994
0.000000000193 0.000000000189 -0.000000444090
0.000000000034 -0.000000000007 0.000000024427
The coefficients of the longitude and latitude (column number 1 and 2) are given in degrees.
The coefficients of the distance (column 3) are given in kilometers.

The whole set of polynomial coefficients fills 2.656 Mb in CPU; it correspond to :

9223 intervals x 3 coordinates x 12 coefficients x 8 bytes.

In order to determine a position of the Moon for a given Julian Date t, the user has to point in
the sequence of polynomials the coefficients which correspond to the interval including the
date t, and the apply the formulae described above. The user may use the subroutine LUNEPH
written in FORTRAN (see the file LUNEPH.FOR).

We illustrate below few values of the coordinates computed with the subroutine LUNEPH:

INITIAL JULIAN DATE : 2440222.5

TIME INTERVAL (DAY) : 2000.0000
NUMBER OF DATES : 8

0001 2440222.50000 70.706477 ° 4.556824 ° 406191.434091 km

0002 2442222.50000 145.368347 ° -4.805043 ° 364663.677443 km
0003 2444222.50000 210.207863 ° 4.278470 ° 396560.378908 km
0004 2446222.50000 293.425759 ° -4.752411 ° 375779.501243 km
0005 2448222.50000 352.131332 ° 4.053439 ° 379628.437424 km
0006 2450222.50000 75.669794 ° -4.419615 ° 398790.324670 km
0007 2452222.50000 142.977972 ° 4.241341 ° 370217.236143 km
0008 2454222.50000 216.481676 ° -4.000508 ° 405367.101797 km
References

• Bidart P., 2001,

MPP01, a new solution for planetary perturbations in the orbital motion of the Moon,
Astron. Astrophys., 366, 351.

• Chapront, J. and Francou G., 2003,

The lunar theory ELP revisited. Introduction of new planetary perturbations,
Astron. Astrophysics., 404, 735.

• Chapront, J., Chapront-Touzé, M., Francou G., 2002,

A new determination of lunar orbital parameters, precession constant and tidal acceleration
from LLR Measurements,
Astron. Astrophysics, 387, 700.

• Chapront J., Chapront-Touzé M. and Francou G., 1999a,

Complements to Moons' lunar libration theory. Comparisons and fits to JPL numerical
integrations,
Celest. Mech., 73, 317-328.

• Chapront J., Chapront-Touzé M. and Francou G., 1999b,

Determination of the lunar orbital and rotational parameters and of the ecliptic reference
system orientation from LLR measurements and IERS data,
Astron. Astrophys., 343, 624-633.

• Chapront J. and Chapront-Touzé M., 1997,

Lunar motion: theory and observations,
Celest. Mech., 73, 317-328.

• Chapront-Touzé M. and Chapront J., 1988,

ELP 2000-85: a semi-analytical lunar ephemeris adequate for historical times,
Astron. Astrophys., 190, 342.

• Chapront-Touzé M. and Chapront J., 1983,

The Lunar Ephemeris ELP 2000.
Astron. Astrophys., 124, 50.

• Standish E.M., 1998,

JPL Planetary and Lunar ephemerides, DE405/LE405,
InterOffice Memorandum, IOM, 321.F-98-048.