Insert Startrek's stardate and startime into the filename

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The Science-Fiction series STAR TREK uses an alternate Date/Time format: STARDATE.

Marginal note: Astronomers also use the word "StarTime" (or "Sidereal Time"), but this differs totally from StarTrek startime. 1 Astronomer staryear (= sidereal year) equals 365 days, 6 hours, 9 minutes and 9.54 seconds.

So far there are several definitions of calculations between STARDATES and our Gregorian Dates

The most usual calculation in the trekker world is:
Stardate 0.000 corresponds to 01 Jan 2323 00:00
One year later (01 Jan 2324) it has increased by 1000 - Stardate 1000.0
Two years later (01 Jan 2325) by another 1000 Units - Stardate 2000.0
This is a raise of ¸ 2.7379 per day.
1 Unit represents 0.365242 days ¸ 8 hours and 45 minutes.
The decimals represent the daytime (in 10ths of a day): e.g.
00:00 = .000,
12:00 = .500,
18:00 = .750,
23:59 = .999
etc.
As you see, these starTIME-fractions are independent of the actual
StarDATES:
So the 01 Jan 2323 12:00 = Stardate 0.500
and the 02 Jan 2323 12:00 = Stardate 2.500 (strictly speaking 2.7379.500)
and the 03 Jan 2323 12:00 = Stardate 5.500 (strictly speaking 5.4758.500).

To get the year just add 2323 to the first two digits, e.g. the episode "The neutral zone" played in 41986, and we know from it, it was year 2364. Thus it verifies 2323+41=2364.

As you can see, before year 2323 ALL stardates MUST be lower than 0.

There is a similar (but uncommon) way to calculate Stardates with the same principles, but totally differentiating figures!
Stardate 0.0 correlates with 31 Jan 2260.
Each earth day increases stardate by about 1.09927053
1 unit represents ¸ 0.909694 days ¸ 21 hours and 49 minutes.
So 01 Feb 2260 (24 hours after 31.01.2260) is startime 1.099.
As you see here, the fractions ARE influenced by the stardate.
(Figures are taken from from »STARDATE FOR WINDOWS 1.0« by Robert Guest.)

Calculation 1. can be combined with another theory (as done by Andrew Main in his "MINI-FAQ: Stardates"):
Stardates are calculated differently in different timeperiods:

a)	Stardate-Type a (SDT-a) is used from 04 Jan 2162 (Stardate 0.0), shortly after incorporation of the Federation. Stardate increases 5 units per day (u/d), i.e.1826 units per year (u/y). Reaching 9999.9 Stardate resets to 0.0. So in fact saying "stardate 4523" can mean 4523,(1)4523,(2)4523,..
b)	Stardate-Type a (SDT-b) ends on 26 Jan 2270 and that is when Stardate-Type b (SDT-b) starts (would equal SDT-a (19)7340). Stardate increases by 0.1 units per day, i.e.36 units per year.
c)	Stardate-Type c (SDT-c) is used from 05 Oct 2283 (would equal SDT-b (19)7840). Stardate increases by 0.5 units per day, i.e.183 units per year.
d)	Stardate-Type d (SDT-d) is used from 01 Jan 2323 (i.e. SDT-c [20]5006) and is set then to 0.0. Stardate increases by 1000 units per year. This is the stardate we introduced in 1)

Overview

Stardate type	Starting at	Stardate	units per day	units per year	years used
3.a)	04 Jan 2162 00:00	[0]0000.0	5	1826	108.06
3.b)	26 Jan 2270 00:00	[19]7340.0	0.1	36	13.69
3.c)	05 Oct 2283 00:00	[19]7840.0	0.5	183	39.24
1. & 3.d)	01 Jan 2323 00:00	00000.0	2.74	1000	until now
2.	31 Jan 2260 00:00	00000.0	1.09	402	until now

These different stardate types are recommended to minimize gaps and to interpolate between other irregularities as much as possible.

You could correlate an episode's stardate with the date it is aired:
The episode "All good things II" was aired for the first time on 21 May 1994, playing at stardate 47988. Taking this as foundation would result in following figures: Instead of Stardate 0 corresponding to 01 Jan 2323 (see 1.), Stardate 47988 now equals 21 May 1994.

To get Stardate for the 23 May 1994 you would add 2.7379 for each further day (as in 1.) 47993.

This kind of calculation is not very accurate:

Season	Episode first/last	Aired	Playing Stardate	Calculated Stardate	Hours per day	Days per season
					Difference between Stardate and calculated Stardate at the end of a season
1)	1 26	26 Sep 87 14 May 88	41153 41986	41785	7.63	73.41
2)	27 48	19 Nov 88 15 Jul 89	42073 42976	42724	9.28	92.04
3)	49 74	23 Sep 89 16 Jun 90	43125 43989	43853	4.48	49.67
4)	75 100	22 Sep 90 15 Jun 91	44001 44995	44729	8.77	97.15
5)	101 126	21 Sep 91 13 Jun 92	45020 45959	45748	6.95	77.07
6)	127 152	19 Sep 92 19 Jun 93	46001 46982	46748	7.51	85.47
7)	153 178	18 Sep 93 21 May 94	47025 47988	47695	10.48	107.02

As you see, per day the difference between the played stardate and the calculated stardate grows by about 8 hours: One would have to calibrate often. Besides: You would have to know the USA-Airing-Date.

An easy (but wrong) formula is :

cc	yy	pp	.pp
Century	Year	Permille of Year	Percent of Day

2095500.10 would mean

20 : 20th Century
95 : 1995
500 : In the middle of year 1995
10 : 1/10th of the day (as in 1.), so about 2:40 in the morning

Another easy (and still wrong) formula is : yymm.dd, e.g. 6911.18 would mean 18 Nov 1969.

An early explanation was, that the digit right to period means a tenth of a day (as in 1.), and the digits left mean the day, so 1456.5 would be noon, 1457.5 would be 24 hours later. Unfortunately this makes the five-year mission some 15 years long.

This 1-unit-per-day-rule was combined with a 57-units-between-episodes-formula. Lots of episodes prove, that 6. and 7. are false, e.g.
a)"The Immunity Syndrome": 1 unit corresponds with less than 2.5 hours.
b)"Requiem for Methuselah": 1 unit corresponds with about 960 hours.

The stardates were even suggested to indicate, how much time has passed from the leave of port in the format mmdd, e.g. Stardate 1602 would mean, that the Spacecraft has left port 16 months and 2 days ago. While this could have been of some value for the Old Series, it's pointless for new ones ("Old" means with Spock&Kirk). And even the Old Series featured Stardates as 3468.1 (why 68 days?). Besides, each ship would then have its own Stardate. Seems a bit stupid.

But: The five-year mission of the Enterprise starts before Stardate 1305 (Kirk entered the vessel DURING the mission) and ends 6987, which equals 6987-1305=5682=56 months and 82 days ¸ 5 years. Plausible Chance?

10.

Yet another regulation (which is in use) was introduced for Star Trek script writers to tidy up the more or less random and conflicting stardates in the Old Star Trek-Series (let alone Star Trek comics and novels) and to make Stardates more accurate and universal:

The first figure means the Century + 20 (else type of the Series).
The second figure means the Season (measuring 1 year per season).
The following figures show, how far the season has proceeded already, so that one Season takes 1000 Stardate-Units.
The decimals mean the part of the day (as above).

So as an example stardate 41995.5 would mean:
4 : 24th Century (or 4 = "The Next Generation")
1 : 1st Season
995 : Season, rather at the end
.5 : 12pm

As you see, Stardates used in "The Next Generation" are taken much more seriously.

Despite these rules the timeline sometimes jumps from an episode to the next (even still in season 1 & 2 of "The Next Generation") or two episodes contradict one another by coinciding (time overlapping) or time even decreases within one episode, because
1)the Script writers didn't care
2)the Script writers made an error
3)the Script writers didn't know, when the episode would be aired
4)the Script writers failed to be on time delivering their episode

which is explained as follows :
1)Time zones : The federation zone is divided up into time zones, with unequal time proceeding or even reversed time direction. If you enter another time zone, you have to adapt Stardate.
2)Time-Speed dependence : The time progressing depends upon the warp factor. Therefore stardates specified in the log entry must be computed against the speed of the vessel and its position within the galaxy. Anyhow : If you are staying, where you are, time progresses normally.

Notes
1)Subspace messages and away teams log the military (24hour) daytime.
2)By the way, the stardates are not hexadecimal, as been suggested in jest.
3)As laid out, stardates are based on Terran Years, and in fact only federation citizens use stardates. Romulans and others never did.

Note on pre-stardate dates
What about calculating dates BEFORE the respective stardate 0.0 ? Nowadays, when historian date ancient dates, they use our calendar. So if an old manuscript is dated as, say, 14 Mar 987, the historian say "It's a manuscript of 19 Mar 987". Thus every calculation should be calibrated to the latest Stardate-Type.

Duty shift sections aboard starfleet starships
.333 (08:00) - .667 (16:00) Alpha Section
.667 (16:00) - .000 (24:00) Beta Section
.000 (24:00) - .333 (08:00) Gamma Section
Sections rotate by 8 hours every two weeks.

Interesting stardates (not only from TV-Series)
1305 Kirk commands the Enterprise on a five-year mission
5431 Spock's brain is removed
6987 The Enterprise's five-year voyage ends
41124 Picard attains command of the U.S.S. "Enterprise"
43989 Picard is transformed by the Borg
44885 La Forge is brainwashed by Romulans
46001 Data dies in the 19th century in San Francisco
48650 Enterprise-D is being destroyed

Beside Stardates there are Vulcan Dates, but of which is too little known to take them into consideration.

Notes on other progs calculating stardates
There are several shareware progs on the market showing other stardates than outlined above:
1)There is a prog, which shows the 31.12.2322 04:00:00 as the wrong (!) Stardate 0.5. I understand this bug, because I had to face the same problem developing 1-4a Rename stardates.
2)There is another, not calculating leap years and using 1 unit as exactly 8 hours (whats wrong either).
3)There is another, showing positive stardates nowadays, what's impossible, too. Moreover from version 1.4 to 3.1 it changed its formula (without explanation) so that on one and the same day version 3.1 displays 95411.3 (why?) while version 1.4 does 14411.1.

Back to 1-4a Rename