ASTRO
Name
ASTRO
Purpose
Interactive utility for precession and coordinate conversion.
Calling Sequence
ASTRO, [ selection, EQUINOX =, /FK4]
Optional Input
SELECTION - Scalar Integer (0-6) giving the the particular astronomical
utility to be used. (0) Precession, (1) RA, Dec (2000) to Galactic
coordinates, (2) Galactic to RA,Dec (2000) (3) RA,Dec (2000) to
Ecliptic, (4) Ecliptic to RA, Dec, (5) Ecliptic to Galactic, (6) Galactic
to Ecliptic. Program will prompt for SELECTION if this
parameter is omitted.
Optional Keyword Input
EQUINOX - numeric scalar specifying the equinox to use when converting
between celestial and other coordinates. If not supplied,
then the RA and Dec will be assumed to be in EQUINOX J2000.
This keyword is ignored by the precession utility. For
example, to convert from RA and DEC (J1975) to Galactic
coordinates:
IDL> astro, 1, E=1975
/FK4 - If this keyword is set and nonzero, then calculations are done
in the FK4 system. For example, to convert from RA and Dec
(B1975) to Galactic coordinates
IDL> astro,1, E=1975,/FK4
Method
ASTRO uses PRECESS to compute precession, and EULER to compute
coordinate conversions. The procedure GET_COORDS is used to
read the coordinates, and ADSTRING to format the RA,Dec output.
Notes
(1) ASTRO temporarily sets !QUIET to suppress compilation messages and
keep a pretty screen display.
(2) ASTRO was changed in December 1998 to use J2000 as the default
equinox, **and may be incompatible with earlier calls.***
(3) A nice online page for coordinate conversions is available at
http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/Tools/convcoord/convcoord.pl
Procedures Used
Procedures: GET_COORDS, EULER Function: ADSTRING
Revision History
Written, W. Landsman November 1987
Code cleaned up W. Landsman October 1991
Added Equinox keyword, call to GET_COORDS, W. Landsman April, 1992
Allow floating point equinox input J. Parker/W. Landsman July 1996
Make FK5 the default, add FK4 keyword