STAR CHART: A COMPUTER PROGRAM TO PLOT AND TABULATE STELLAR POSITIONS,
Abstract
A user's manual for Star Chart, a computer program that produces both tabular and graphical output giving accurate updated positions of all catalogued stars in any chosen field of view on the celestial sphere. Originally written at Bell Telephone Laboratories, the program has been adapted to operate in FORTRAN IV for an IBM 7044 computer and an S-C 4020 plotter. The output is used to determine satellite and space-vehicle positions from photographs and for other astronomical purposes. Star Chart draws information from a taped reproduction of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's catalog listing 258,997 stars. On each run, the program can handle requests for 100 fields of view as seen from up to 25 telescope locations. It automatically corrects the catalog data for proper motion, precession, nutation, annual and diurnal aberrations, and, if requested, for atmospheric refraction. It produces (1) a tabular output giving plate coordinates, altitude, azimuth, and other data, and (2) a tape that can be fed into the plotter to produce two star maps. Internal computing accuracy is very high (0.01 arcsec), and maximum 'storage error' is 0.02 sec--less than the 0.05 sec standard deviation of the catalog data. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 01, 1968
- Accession Number
- AD0671922
Entities
People
- G. E. Kocher
- R. Mobley
Organizations
- RAND Corporation