Furthermore, the article never says that the saros is what is used by NASA. In fact, when you look at their catalog of eclipse predictions you see that it uses VSOP87 for the sun’s coordinates and ELP2000/82 theory for the Moon’s coordinates. One might wonder why this is needed if they were using The Saros and not a computational model?
The Saros Cycle just tells you when the Lunar or Solar Eclipse will occur. That is not to say that the sun or the moon will actually be in the sky for you at that time. There is more or less a 50/50 chance.
In order to know if the sun or moon would be visible at that time, you would need to use another model.
During a Lunar Eclipse anyone who can see the moon in their sky will see the eclipse. During the Solar Eclipse, the eclipse is only visible from a smaller strip of land around the sun, and it would also be important to know where the sun is directly over the earth is in order to attempt a map of the strip.
We’ve already seen that you have misrepresented the information on that site. Indeed I’ve demonstrated (not asserted) that they use a computational model to carry out their predictions. The theories are cited in the catalog whereas Saros cycles are not. Unfortunately for you, Astronomy is incredibly substantial and not regurgitation of ancient knowledge.
There are no such similar messages on that eclipse predicting website. See the main page and resources page. It only ever talks about the Saros Cycle as the method.
If the Three Body Problem were solved, and if this were the method that was being used, is it not more reasonable that NASA would be talking about how they solved the famous Three Body Problem rather than going on and on on that website about an ancient method that is not in use?
What you are proposing seems a bit absurd. Numerous pages about the Saros Cycle, but not a word about how they are really predicting the eclipse.
Do you just forget the bottom of the page every time? How can I point this out to you literally every time you try and bring this nonsense in, yet you persist in peddling it? Both of those pages have this at the bottom:
"All eclipse calculations are by Fred Espenak, and he assumes full responsibility for their accuracy. Some of the information presented on this web site is based on data originally published in Fifty Year Canon of Solar Eclipses: 1986 - 2035, Fifty Year Canon of Lunar Eclipses: 1986 - 2035, Five Millennium Canon of Solar Eclipses: -1999 to +3000 , Five Millennium Catalog of Solar Eclipses: -1999 to +3000, Five Millennium Canon of Lunar Eclipses: -1999 to +3000 , and Five Millennium Catalog of Lunar Eclipses: -1999 to +3000.
Permission is freely granted to reproduce this data when accompanied by an acknowledgment:
"Eclipse Predictions by Fred Espenak, NASA/GSFC Emeritus"
For more information, see: NASA Copyright Information."
If we go to the page for
Five Millenium Catalog of Solar Eclipses we see a bunch of stuff talking about Saros Cycles, followed by the header "Predictions" whereupon it is plainly stated the following:
"The coordinates of the Sun used in these predictions are based on the VSOP87 theory [Bretagnon and Francou, 1988]. The Moon's coordinates are based on the ELP-2000/82 theory [Chapront-Touze and Chapront, 1983]. For more information, see: Solar and Lunar Ephemerides. The revised value used for the Moon's secular acceleration is n-dot = -25.858 arc-sec/cy*cy, as deduced from the Apollo lunar laser ranging experiment (Chapront, Chapront-Touze, and Francou, 2002).
The largest uncertainty in the eclipse predictions is caused by fluctuations in Earth's rotation due primarily to tidal friction of the Moon. The resultant drift in apparent clock time is expressed as ΔT and is determined as follows:
pre-1950's: ΔT calculated from empirical fits to historical records derived by Morrison and Stephenson (2004)
1955-present: ΔT obtained from published observations
future: ΔT is extrapolated from current values weighted by the long term trend from tidal effects
A series of polynomial expressions have been derived to simplify the evaluation of ΔT for any time from -1999 to +3000. The uncertainty in ΔT over this period can be estimated from scatter in the measurements."
NASA's eclipse predictions are not based upon the Saros cycle. It is simply a handy tool to know approximately when to 'dial in' to look for the next eclipse if you must. Or a neat thing for the layman to know about, as it's more easily understood than the physics and math behind the two primary calculations for where things are.