Any astronomers around?

[htom trites]

Meeus's Astronomical Algorithms slowly works through all* of the many (sometimes subtle) complications of stellar (and planetary) computation in the sky. For some uses, some of them can be ignored. If you're at all interested in this topic, it's an essential work. There are five collections of updates and expansions. You don't need to study all of it, from front to back, each topic is independently treated.

*Well, almost all; the version I borrowed from the library did not have the USN time + position + velocity reduction from seven independent separated celestial observations. Check your GPS with your sextant. It may be that this isn't published, or is in one of the subsequent collections.