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IERS Message No. 298                                       June 15, 2016
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New release of the IAU SOFA software library


The 12th release of the SOFA (Standards of Fundamental Astronomy)
software was issued on 3 May 2016. This is a major release as it
contains a model for long-term precession and a new section entitled
Ecliptic Coordinates. Four routines have been added to the section on
Precession/Nutation/Polar motion to deliver long-term (+/-200,000 years)
precession using the model of Vondrak, Capitaine and Wallace (2011,
2012). Six routines have been provided dealing with the transformation
between equatorial and ecliptic coordinates using either the IAU 2006
precession model or the long-term precession of Vondrak et al. Test
programs t_sofa_f.for and t_sofa_c.c have been updated as has the header
file sofa.h to reflect these changes. Versions of the SOFA Earth
Attitude Cookbook are now available for both Fortran and ANSI C. The
list of called routines have been corrected in both the Fortran and ANSI
C versions of ATCO13 and ATIO13.

See the SOFA website at http://www.iausofa.org for the latest downloads
and details of all changes.

SOFA operates under the auspices of the International Astronomical Union
(IAU) to provide algorithms and software for use in astronomical
computing. The initiative is managed by an international panel, the SOFA
Board, appointed through IAU Division A. The Board obtains the latest
IAU-approved models and theories from the fundamental-astronomy
community, implements them as computer code and checks them for
accuracy. SOFA works closely with all the Commissions of the Division
and with the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service
(IERS).


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