Ask HN: Which astronomy textbook for beginners?
I am fighting two issues:
1. While it is possible to code the algorithms as a non-astronomer with the information provided in the book, I would definitely want to understand much better what it is all about.
2. I am afraid, that the book is a little bit outdated by now. Many of the tables provided with astronomical data only run until 2025. Some important standards like WGS84 are not mentioned (actually I cannot determine what elipsoid the calculations are referring to). The sign of geographical longitudes for the Earth is turned around in the book (positive for West and negative for East), for reasons, which makes some algorithms IMO really dangerous to use in a real-world context.
Can you recommend any good astronomy "familiarization manual", that is feasible for absolute beginners, but goes deep enough with serious number crunching? In English or German language...