Calculating stardate

[CAPT Darryl F Wood]

To quote Memory Alpha:

The Next Generation era

The teleplay of TNG: "Encounter at Farpoint" dated April 13, 1987 contains stardates ranging from 42353.7 to 42372.5. (Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion CD) This was changed to 41153.7-41174.2 on the air, consistent with the following description in Star Trek: The Next Generation Writer's/Director's Guide of March 23, 1987 (page 13):
A stardate is a five-digit number followed by a decimal point and one more digit. Example: "41254.7." The first two digits of the stardate are always "41." The 4 stands for 24th century, the 1 indicates first season. The additional three leading digits will progress unevenly during the course of the season from 000 to 999. The digit following the decimal point is generally regarded as a day counter.

Under this system, 1,000 stardate units were equal to approximately one year, since that is the normal timespan between two TV seasons. The value of the century digit nine seasons later was clarified as early as TNG: "Future Imperfect", where the imaginary Jean-Luc Riker asks the computer to display his birthday party of stardate 58416, less than sixteen years in the future according to the episode. The relation to the 24th century could only be symbolic. The writers of the Star Trek Chronology further developed the system by having a calendar year start at 000 and end at 999, although this does not fit all references in the show, such as a Diwali celebration around stardate 44390, too early in the year according to the simplified system. (TNG: "Data's Day") Stardate 41986.0 was in 2364 according to TNG: "The Neutral Zone", hence the simplified system assumes that stardates 41xxx.x covered the entire year 2364, stardates 42xxx.x the entire year 2365 and so forth.

The second digit continued to increase every TV season in other spin-offs as well, even after TNG had ended. Since DS9 premiered during the sixth season of TNG and was set in exactly the same timeframe, stardates on DS9 ranged from 46379.1 to 52861.3. Likewise, the first season of Voyager would've been the eighth season of TNG had it continued, so Voyager stardates ranged from 48315.6 to 54973.4. Star Trek Nemesis, the latest Star Trek story in the 24th century, had a stardate of 56844.9, showing that it took place approximately fifteen years after the first season of TNG. However, stardates of events prior to TNG: "Encounter at Farpoint", but not so far back as the time of TOS, do not always conform to this method of counting. For example, in TNG: "Dark Page", the stardate for an event which took place 42 years before 47254.1 is given as 30620.1, which, according to the standard method of counting used after "Encounter at Farpoint", should only be 17 years earlier.

In addition to the overall rate of approximately 1,000 units per year, many episodes confirm the 24-hour stardate unit which was first mentioned in the TOS bible, with midnight at .0 and noon at .5.

Thus:

41 526.9

41 - number of the year (2364). 2365 will be 42 XXX, 2366 43 XXX and so on.

526 - number of the day. One year has 1000 days, which go from 000 to 999.

.9 - number of the hour. One day has ten hours, midnight at .0 and noon at .5. Thus, .9 will be anywhere between 21:24 and 23:59.

Thus, while normal year has 365,25 days or cca 8766 hours, Starfleet year has 1000 days and 10000 hours.

However, to keep it simple, I recommend we use following calculator:
http://www.route56.com/startrek/stardate.html

[CAPT Darryl F Wood]

Keeping that in mind, one Starfleet hour is 52 minutes 35,76 seconds long, one Starfleet day is 8 Earth hours 45 minutes and 57,6 seconds long. Again, however, I recomend usage of calculator I provided link to above.

[CAPT Darryl F Wood]

http://timeanddate.com/calendar/?year=2372&country=28

Today it's 17th june 2372.

For rest of 2012 / 2372 dates remain the same, as they do for 2013 / 2373, 2014 / 2374, 2015 / 2375 - and for all other following years, it seems.

[CAPT Darryl F Wood]

http://www.reocities.com/Area51/Corridor/5709/stardateDS9.html

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