Besselian year
E579592
A Besselian year is a time interval used in astronomy, defined with respect to the Sun’s mean position relative to the stars and historically used as a reference for star catalogs and celestial coordinates.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Besselian year canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T6250966 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
Target entity: Besselian year Context triple: [Friedrich Bessel, hasEponym, Besselian year]
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A.
Saros cycle
The Saros cycle is an approximately 18-year period after which nearly identical solar and lunar eclipses repeat, due to the alignment of the Earth, Moon, and Sun.
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B.
Barycentric Dynamical Time
Barycentric Dynamical Time is a relativistic time scale used in celestial mechanics and ephemerides, defined for an observer at the solar system’s barycenter to accurately model planetary and spacecraft motions.
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C.
Ephemerides
Ephemerides is a 15th-century astronomical table compiled by Regiomontanus that provided highly accurate planetary positions and became a foundational tool for navigation and astronomy in early modern Europe.
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D.
Metonic cycle
The Metonic cycle is a 19-year astronomical period after which the phases of the Moon recur on the same days of the solar year, forming the basis for many lunisolar calendars.
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E.
Milanković calendar
The Milanković calendar is a 20th-century reform of the Julian calendar, designed by Serbian scientist Milutin Milanković to more accurately align the civil year with the solar year and used by some Eastern Orthodox churches.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
Target entity: Besselian year Target entity description: A Besselian year is a time interval used in astronomy, defined with respect to the Sun’s mean position relative to the stars and historically used as a reference for star catalogs and celestial coordinates.
-
A.
Saros cycle
The Saros cycle is an approximately 18-year period after which nearly identical solar and lunar eclipses repeat, due to the alignment of the Earth, Moon, and Sun.
-
B.
Barycentric Dynamical Time
Barycentric Dynamical Time is a relativistic time scale used in celestial mechanics and ephemerides, defined for an observer at the solar system’s barycenter to accurately model planetary and spacecraft motions.
-
C.
Ephemerides
Ephemerides is a 15th-century astronomical table compiled by Regiomontanus that provided highly accurate planetary positions and became a foundational tool for navigation and astronomy in early modern Europe.
-
D.
Metonic cycle
The Metonic cycle is a 19-year astronomical period after which the phases of the Moon recur on the same days of the solar year, forming the basis for many lunisolar calendars.
-
E.
Milanković calendar
The Milanković calendar is a 20th-century reform of the Julian calendar, designed by Serbian scientist Milutin Milanković to more accurately align the civil year with the solar year and used by some Eastern Orthodox churches.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (38)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
astronomical time interval
ⓘ
time scale ⓘ |
| appliesTo |
ecliptic coordinates
ⓘ
equatorial coordinates ⓘ |
| category |
astronomical time standards
ⓘ
units of time in astronomy ⓘ |
| closeTo | tropical year ⓘ |
| contrastedWith | Julian year of exactly 365.25 days ⓘ |
| coordinateSystemAssociation |
B1950.0 reference frame
ⓘ
FK4 star catalog system NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| definedSoThat | Besselian year begins when mean Sun’s ecliptic longitude is 280 degrees NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| definedWithRespectTo |
Sun’s mean position
ⓘ
ecliptic longitude of the mean Sun ⓘ mean Sun relative to the stars ⓘ |
| epochNotation | Besselian epoch NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| historicallyUsedAs |
reference epoch for celestial coordinates
ⓘ
reference epoch for star catalogs ⓘ |
| lengthApproximate |
365.242198781 days
ⓘ
365.2422 days ⓘ |
| namedAfter | Friedrich Bessel NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| referenceFrame | fixed stars ⓘ |
| relatedConcept |
Besselian epoch B1900.0
ⓘ
Besselian epoch B1950.0 ⓘ |
| replacedInPracticeBy | J2000.0 epoch ⓘ |
| status | largely obsolete in modern astrometry ⓘ |
| stillEncounteredIn |
legacy star catalogs
ⓘ
older astronomical literature ⓘ |
| supersededBy |
Julian epoch
ⓘ
Julian year ⓘ |
| timeScaleType | mean solar-based year ⓘ |
| typicalEpochExamples |
B1900.0
ⓘ
B1950.0 ⓘ |
| usedBefore | adoption of J2000.0 as standard epoch ⓘ |
| usedFor |
celestial coordinate systems
ⓘ
precession calculations ⓘ proper motion calculations ⓘ star catalogs ⓘ |
| usedIn | astronomy ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Subject: Besselian year Description of subject: A Besselian year is a time interval used in astronomy, defined with respect to the Sun’s mean position relative to the stars and historically used as a reference for star catalogs and celestial coordinates.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.