Gauss's method
Way to determine a preliminary orbit from initial observations in astronomy / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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In orbital mechanics (a subfield of celestial mechanics), Gauss's method is used for preliminary orbit determination from at least three observations (more observations increases the accuracy of the determined orbit) of the orbiting body of interest at three different times. The required information are the times of observations, the position vectors of the observation points (in Equatorial Coordinate System), the direction cosine vector of the orbiting body from the observation points (from Topocentric Equatorial Coordinate System) and general physical data.
Carl Friedrich Gauss developed important mathematical techniques (summed up in Gauss's methods) which were specifically used to determine the orbit of Ceres. The method shown following is the orbit determination of an orbiting body about the focal body where the observations were taken from, whereas the method for determining Ceres' orbit requires a bit more effort because the observations were taken from Earth while Ceres orbits the Sun.