Institut für Astronomie und AstrophysikAbteilung AstronomieWaldhäuser Str. 64, D-72076 Tübingen, Germany |
BPRECESS
Precess positions from J2000.0 (FK5) to B1950.0 (FK4)
Calculates the mean place of a star at B1950.0 on the FK4 system from the mean place at J2000.0 on the FK5 system.
bprecess, ra, dec, ra_1950, dec_1950, [ MU_RADEC = , PARALLAX = RAD_VEL =, EPOCH = ]
RA,DEC - Input J2000 right ascension and declination in *degrees*. Scalar or N element vector
RA_1950, DEC_1950 - The corresponding B1950 right ascension and declination in *degrees*. Same number of elements as RA,DEC but always double precision.
MU_RADEC - 2xN element double precision vector containing the proper motion in seconds of arc per tropical *century* in right ascension and declination. PARALLAX - N_element vector giving stellar parallax (seconds of arc) RAD_VEL - N_element vector giving radial velocity in km/s The values of MU_RADEC, PARALLAX, and RADVEL will all be modified upon output to contain the values of these quantities in the B1950 system. The parallax and radial velocity will have a very minor influence on the B1950 position. EPOCH - scalar giving epoch of original observations, default 2000.0d This keyword value is only used if the MU_RADEC keyword is not set.
The algorithm is taken from the Explanatory Supplement to the Astronomical Almanac 1992, page 186. Also see Aoki et al (1983), A&A, 128,263 BPRECESS distinguishes between the following two cases: (1) The proper motion is known and non-zero (2) the proper motion is unknown or known to be exactly zero (i.e. extragalactic radio sources). In this case, the reverse of the algorithm in Appendix 2 of Aoki et al. (1983) is used to ensure that the output proper motion is exactly zero. Better precision can be achieved in this case by inputting the EPOCH of the original observations. The error in using the IDL procedure PRECESS for converting between B1950 and J1950 can be up to 1.5", mainly in right ascension. If better accuracy than this is needed then BPRECESS should be used. An unsystematic comparison of BPRECESS with the IPAC precession routine (http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/forms/calculator.html) always gives differences less than 0.15".
The SAO2000 catalogue gives the J2000 position and proper motion for the star HD 119288. Find the B1950 position. RA(2000) = 13h 42m 12.740s Dec(2000) = 8d 23' 17.69'' Mu(RA) = -.0257 s/yr Mu(Dec) = -.090 ''/yr IDL> mu_radec = 100D* [ -15D*.0257, -0.090 ] IDL> ra = ten(13, 42, 12.740)*15.D IDL> dec = ten(8, 23, 17.69) IDL> bprecess, ra, dec, ra1950, dec1950, mu_radec = mu_radec IDL> print, adstring(ra1950, dec1950,2) ===> 13h 39m 44.526s +08d 38' 28.63"
Written, W. Landsman October, 1992 Vectorized, W. Landsman February, 1994 Treat case where proper motion not known or exactly zero November 1994 Handling of arrays larger than 32767 Lars L. Christensen, march, 1995 Converted to IDL V5.0 W. Landsman September 1997 Fixed bug where A term not initialized for vector input W. Landsman February 2000
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