OT Remark on Re: time, calendar, datetime, etc

[Mel Wilson]

In article <bgcr5a$8ac$1 at slb9.atl.mindspring.net>,
"Andrew Dalke" <adalke at mindspring.com> wrote:
>Well, if you're doing astronomical time, wouldn't you just add 4700
>and something years and 12 hours (as I recall, astronomers have a
>12 hours offset because they observe at night and don't want to have
>to change the date (or forget to change the date) part way though.)

(Also the Royal Navy, in the era of Patrick O'Brians novels.
Apparently because you can determine local noon exactly with
a sun sight, but there's damn all you can do to determine
midnight without a lot of work.)

        Regards.        Mel.