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Questions tagged [fundamental-astronomy]

Questions involving reference frames, time scales, and how they are determined. Not for general Astronomy 101 questions.

5 votes
2 answers
399 views

Acronyms of catalogs in SIMBAD database

How to find acronym of specific catalog in SIMBAD database? For example, I want to select stellar names, object types and all binary stars from "Stellar effective magnetic fields. II." catalog (...
user2579566's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
125 views

Please take the time to visit Meta!

A lot of you are probably already aware of our meta site, but I wanted to take the time to remind you that it only requires 5 reputation points to participate--and this is a critical part of our site. ...
called2voyage's user avatar
  • 6,300
7 votes
2 answers
2k views

How to plot orbit of binary star and calculate its orbital elements?

I have a set of dates, position angles ($\theta$) and angular separations ($\rho$) for visual binary star. For example: ...
user2579566's user avatar
22 votes
4 answers
6k views

How would the night sky look from inside a globular cluster?

When the weather is clear, we can look at the stars. And we normally would see several thousands of them, they all being more than a $\textrm{pc}$ away from us. Now, there are globular clusters, ...
Alexey Bobrick's user avatar
4 votes
2 answers
9k views

How to calculate Longitude from Right Ascension?

Considering that a star of certain declination is crossing the local meridian at the observer's zenith at an unknown location on the earth. Here, the declination of the star is equal to the observer's ...
Ken's user avatar
  • 366
4 votes
1 answer
541 views

Coordinate transformations between reference frames in spherical astronomy

Suppose there are two observational frames of reference with origins $O$ and $O'$, respectively, separated by some constant distance. A body located at point $P$ has Cartesian coordinates $\left(x,y,z\...
David H's user avatar
  • 854
6 votes
1 answer
9k views

How to measure the altitude and azimuth of a star?

Given that the star is crossing the local meridian line in a certain location, I've tried calculating the altitude of a star by finding the difference between the declination of the star and the ...
Ken's user avatar
  • 366
9 votes
1 answer
19k views

Calculation of right ascension and declination

I am confused about this problem: If I see an object from Mount Teide (longitude is 16"30'E and latitude is 28"18'N) that passes the meridian (azimuth=0) at 5h (am) UTC, and I also know that the ...
Jackson Hart's user avatar

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