a bit of help here?

General physics and astronomy discussions not directly related to Celestia
Topic author
egasimus
Posts: 9
Joined: 25.02.2009
With us: 15 years 8 months

a bit of help here?

Post #1by egasimus » 27.05.2009, 11:38

Hi (: I'm in desperate need of some help with some calculations.
1st, I need to convert ecliptic coordinates (-39 +/- 9 microas/yr toward the East and 31 +/- 8 microas/yr toward the North) to equatorial.
2nd, I need rotation matrices for the galactic plane in relation to the equatorial, and for the supergalactic plane in relation to the galactic and equatorial, and maybe an algorithm to convert between the three as well.
Other problems might arise later, too. Could you please help me out?

bdm
Posts: 461
Joined: 22.07.2005
With us: 19 years 4 months
Location: Australia

Re: a bit of help here?

Post #2by bdm » 28.05.2009, 03:31

egasimus wrote:Hi (: I'm in desperate need of some help with some calculations.
1st, I need to convert ecliptic coordinates (-39 +/- 9 microas/yr toward the East and 31 +/- 8 microas/yr toward the North) to equatorial.
From Astronomical Algorithms (Meeus):
tan A = (sin L cos E - tan B sin E) / cos L
sin D = sin B cos E + cos B sin E sin L

A: right ascension
D: declination
L: ecliptical longitude
B: ecliptical latitude
E: Obliquity of the ecliptic (angle between ecliptic and celestial equator, or axial tilt of the Earth)

NOTES:
* The original formulae used Greek letters, substituted for convenience.
* for the tan A formula, I recommend using the second arctan function (atan2) because this avoids issues with division by zero.

Topic author
egasimus
Posts: 9
Joined: 25.02.2009
With us: 15 years 8 months

Re: a bit of help here?

Post #3by egasimus » 28.05.2009, 08:36

Yeah, but what about them being in microarcseconds? Do I convert them to degrees first?

ajtribick
Developer
Posts: 1855
Joined: 11.08.2003
With us: 21 years 3 months

Re: a bit of help here?

Post #4by ajtribick » 02.06.2009, 19:00

If it's got trig formulae, use radians.


Return to “Physics and Astronomy”