Lunar theory
Éphéméride Lunaire Parisienne is a lunar theory developed by Jean Chapront, Michelle Chapront-Touzé, and others at the Bureau des Longitudes in the 1970s to 1990s.
Method.
ELP gives a series expansion of the orbital elements and the coordinates of the Moon. The authors refer to it as a "semi-analytical" theory because they developed their expressions not purely symbolically, but introduced numerical values for orbital constants from the outset; but they also constructed partial derivatives of all terms with respect to these constants, so they could make corrections afterwards to reach the final solution.
ELP has been fitted not directly to observations, but to the numerical integrations known as the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Development Ephemeris (which includes the Lunar Ephemerides), that in their turn have been fitted to actual astronomical observations. ELP was fitted initially to the DE200, but improved parameters have been published up to DE405.
Even though ELP contains more than 20,000 periodic terms, it is not sufficiently accurate to predict the Moon's position to the centimeter accuracy with which it can be measured by LLR. An attempt was made to improve the planetary terms with the ELP/MPP02 lunar theory, ;ref name="ELP/MPP02" ; ;/ref ; but heuristic corrections remained necessary.
Advantages.
A theory like the ELP has two advantages over numerical integration:
Availability and use.
Upon popular demand, the Chapronts also published ELP2000-85 and a book, "Lunar Programs and Tables" with a truncated version of their theory and with programs, that could be used by historians and amateur astronomers to compute the position of the Moon themselves.
Jean Meeus used the ELP in his popular book "Astronomical Algorithms" (1991, 1998).
The ELP was also used to compute NASA's 5000-year canon of eclipses.
References.
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