Re: 2009 Kamada Ekadashi on April 5th

Respected Swamiji and devotees,

      Nityananda Gauranga Hare Krishna! I compared the readings of both calendars. Everything is almost identical.  No difference in tithi and other important days. The sunrise/sunset timings and fast breaking times are sometimes different by about 1 min for both calendars.  I checked for a 5 year calculation. This is because of very small differences (1') in latitude/longitude entries of the cities and also due to different rouding off of times.

       What needs to be checked is the moon timings. Moonrise in Vaisnava Reminder are on average 4 mins off with respect to Gcal. So considering Gcal's accuracy it may be that VR may be the one off. However on an average, both calendars are off by 3 mins either way from modern calculations. Gcal's error is about 1 wrong date in 20 years and perhaps VR too is more or less accurate.

        However gcal's solar and lunar co-ordinate calculation is accurate to 6 digits which is remarkable.

     Vaisnava Reminder also has fixed muhurtas and also the daylight savings feature. It had a major update.

     So in conclusion:

VR:
-->Pros -- Interface, Style, ease of use, gives Strong Alerts in advance, many varieties of calculations available. Most parameters Sync with gcal within 1 min, if at all. Has different calendars for ISKCON/BTI. Can also add more places with all parameters.

                Automatic Calculations. Auto Load and auto alert at startup. Supplies information on important days and dates. Alerts active for upto 2 days. Keeps running in background and works automatically. Format similar to Windows System Date and Time. Multiple Date and Time formats. Daylight Savings option.

                  Can add own events (I haven't tested this). Built in scheduler, To Do list and Diary. Data can be exported to HTML or icalendar with custom settings.

-->Cons -- Moonrise/moonset timings differ with Gcal by avg 3 mins. Does not show astrological parameters in events list.

Gcal :
-->Pros -- More accurate timings (about 1 min). Huge number of virtually all astrological parameters calculated and displayed in Calendar. More accurate moon rise timings. Events list merged with calendar. Greater number of built in cities

-->Cons -- No automatic control, needs manual startup and recalculation at every run. No Alert system. Excessively plain notepad interface.

My suggestion is that devotees use both. You will need VR for its automatic start, hefty features and customization and alerts, but then if you want best accruacy you can cross check the timings with gcal accordingly.
     

Daaso'smi,
Srinath

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