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by petschge 2308 days ago
In astronomy we typically date events by observation date, not by date at the remote location. The reason is that distance is often poorly known and the estimates are subject to change over time. Time at the solar system barycenter on the other hand can be determined down to the nanosecond and can be compared very well between different observatories.
2 comments

I'd say the main reason is that there is no use for the "distance corrected" date. We're all basically in the same place so we can't really mix up the ordering by ignoring the travel time.

Honestly, the best use of this the light delay fact is that you can annoy transient observers by trying to get SN1987A renamed to SN-1678900A or something.

That and relative velocity between objects can greatly effect what year they would consider the event happening at in their "past" or "future".