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ASTRO
Interactive utility for precession and coordinate conversion.
ASTRO, [ selection, EQUINOX =, /FK4]
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.
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
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.
(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: GET_COORDS, EULER Function: ADSTRING
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
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