Riyal – What’s New

Riyal Calculation Software “Whats New”

https://astrologicalparadigms.com/Riyal/Riyal_for_Windows.exe

https://astrologicalparadigms.com/Riyal/distant.dat

This is the RAR package of version 3.99 of Riyal. Nothing has been changed since 2013, but it works in my Windows 10 without a glitch. A new updated version is in preparation.

August 4, 2026. The “all distant objects” option of Riyal 3.99 uses a database from the beginning of 2013. It included  1,726 objects beginning with 944 Hidalgo as the defining line. A newer database from 2022 can now be used. It features 4,109 objects –59 named– starting with Hidalgo.

Go to the Riyal directory or folder, remove “distant.dat”, and replace it with this file. This is the updated version.

The “all named objects” uses the file “named.dat” in the Riyal directory; it includes 17,502 objects from February 2013, but this file will not be updated. Since these are all named, their orbits are all well known already, and the new names of distant objects will appear in the other list.

Riyal users must be aware that these 2 routines or menu options can be used to calculate accurate positions of any object in the list. The first  default tabulation is the result of a 2-body calculation that is only an approximation. Click “OK”. When youn right-click on any of the lines or names Riyal performs a limited numerical integration after which a small box pops out at the center showing the correct coordinates. Click “OK” and try right-clicking  any other object.

Both lists (“distant” and “named”) can be sorted according to any of the columns when you click on a column header, revealing many orbital details of each object that can only be revealed in comparisons made possible through the different ways of sorting. Additionally, they are  in plain text format so they can be easily edited, or individual bodies can be added.

The accuracy of the numerical integration after about 100 years is close to 1-arcminute in the case of the main belt asteroids, better than 15 or 20 arcsends in the case of transneptunians and centaurs. Due to an unidentified glitch or bug in the numerical integration procedure, the objects of the Apollo type or earth grazers –those whose perihelion distance is less that 1.3 AU– cannot be integrated.

With the exception explained above, it is possible to make detailed tabular ephemerides of any object with Riyal.

How do I build ephemerides of any object with Riyal?

1. 1. Go to “Special” and click on “Input Orbital Elements”. A default dialog will appear with the osculating orbital elements of Ceres. The new elements can be input by hand if the object is very new, or you can take advantage of the “named” and “distant” databases that Riyal uses by clicking on “Ceres”. Presently only the “named” database can be used.
   2. After clicking on “Ceres”, Riyal will display the whole list of 17,500 named objects. Scroll the list (horizontally) until you find the desired object and double-click on it. This closes the displayed list and presents the corresponding object and its osculating orbital elements, giving you the option of specifying a target date and time.
   3. Once the date and time are specified, you have 2 choices: “calculate” and “Integrate”. The first is a 2-body calculation, the second is a numerical integration. If you so desire you can stay in the dialog and try as many objects as you want, OR you can press “OK” and leave the dialog in order to take advantage of Riyal’s internal numerical integration feature, and build a detailed multi-date ephemerides.
   4. When the main-belt faster asteroids are going to be integrated past several centuries from the present time, the 12-days default time-step of the integration should be reduced to ensure more accurate results. This 12 days default step will not have a significant effect in the case of the slow-moving objects.
   5. After clicking “OK” and closing the dialog, go to “Special” and click on “generate ephemerides” and choose “one object only”. A dialog will apear asking you to choose the object you want. Here’s the trick: click on the pink box that says “Aux” at the bottom of the dialog. When you click on “Aux” you will see the name of the object appear at the top of the dialog. Now click “OK”. Choose the start and ending dates and the desired time step in days of the tabulation.
   6. Voilà.

Riyal’s “readme” provides a sample of maximum errors of the numerical integration. In the worst case of the asteroids of the main belt between Mars and Jupiter, the maximum error is 1-arcminute from 1900 to 2100. But the distant, slow moving objects show maximum errors of the order of only 10 to 15 arcseconds.

	1900-2012	centaurs	1900-2012	transneptunians	1900-2012
Ceres	46″	Chiron	12″	Eris	1″
Pallas	1’17”	Pholus	8″	Varuna	7″
Juno	1’04”	Nessus	8″	Orcus	14″
Vesta	9″	Asbolus	6″	Typhon	9″