Editing Celestial mechanics (section)

===Standardisation of astronomical tables===
[[Simon Newcomb]] was a Canadian-American astronomer who revised [[Peter Andreas Hansen]]'s table of lunar positions. In 1877, assisted by [[George William Hill]], he recalculated all the major astronomical constants. After 1884 he conceived, with A.M.W. Downing, a plan to resolve much international confusion on the subject. By the time he attended a standardisation conference in [[Paris]], France, in May&nbsp;1886, the international consensus was that all ephemerides should be based on Newcomb's calculations. A further conference as late as 1950 confirmed Newcomb's constants as the international standard.