Celestia Forums

With the new patch I want to place stars in a nearby galaxy using Globular Cluster Generator 1.3
My problem is finding to exact coordinates of the galaxy I want. I looked up the galaxy in question in the deepsky.dsc in this is what I found



When I use those coordinates in the DSC file the star cluster misses the galaxy but when I use the coordinates listed at that ulr


It places it perfectly so is there a conversion process I am missing?

how does this
RA 18.9175
Dec -30.4783

become this

RA 18 55 03.1
Dec -30 28 42

The 18 55 02.1 is in H.m.s format. Celestia requires RA to be expressed as a decimal number. You need to convert the H.m.s form to decimal.

Use the formula: hours + (minutes/60) + (seconds/3600)

eg. 18 + 55/60 + 3.1/3600 = 18.91752778

Perhaps sometime Celestia could recognize Sexagesimal (DMS), or in HMS, or whatever.

This accomplished the same results though it's not meant for this...

I used the RA value for latitude and the Dec value for longitude.
http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/bickel/DDDMMSS-decimal.html

Thank you guys.

Celestia's use of RA is somewhat confusing:
RA must be entered as fractional Degrees (0-360) when specified in an STC (STar) file,
but must be entered as fractional Hours (0-24) when specified in a DSC (Deep Space) file.