Positional Astronomy: <br>Introduction

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http://star-www.st-and.ac.uk/~fv/webnotes/intro.htm

Positional Astronomy:
Introduction
This course is intended to address the following problems:
How to describe the position of an object in the sky.
Which different coordinate systems are appropriate in different situations.
How to transform between coordinate systems.
What corrections have to be applied.
It is largely based on the following text-books:
GREEN, Robin M., Spherical Astronomy (CUP, 1985)
McNALLY, D., Positional Astronomy (Muller, 1974)
SMART, W.M., Text-book on Spherical Astronomy (CUP, 1965)
There are other good text-books available;
they should all have Library of Congress classifications around classmark QB145.

Also look at:

The Astronomical Almanac
Norton's Star Atlas or Norton's Star Atlas 2000
Objects in the sky appear to be positioned on the celestial sphere, an indefinite distance away.
A sphere is a three-dimensional object, but its surface is two-dimensional.
Spherical geometry is carried out on the surface of a sphere:
it resembles ordinary (plane) geometry, but it involves new rules and relationships.

Next section: The Terrestrial Sphere

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3.12.2016 16:46