Institut für Astronomie und AstrophysikAbteilung AstronomieWaldhäuser Str. 64, D-72076 Tübingen, Germany |
SUNPOS
To compute the RA and Dec of the Sun at a given date.
SUNPOS, jd, ra, dec, [elong, obliquity, /RADIAN ]
jd - The Julian date of the day (and time), scalar or vector usually double precision
ra - The right ascension of the sun at that date in DEGREES double precision, same number of elements as jd dec - The declination of the sun at that date in DEGREES
elong - Ecliptic longitude of the sun at that date in DEGREES. obliquity - the obliquity of the ecliptic, in DEGREES
/RADIAN - If this keyword is set and non-zero, then all output variables are given in Radians rather than Degrees
The accuracy in the 20th century should be within 1"; however this has not been extensively tested. The returned RA and Dec are in the given date's equinox. Procedure was extensively revised in May 1996, and the new calling sequence is incompatible with the old one.
Uses a truncated version of Newcomb's Sun. Adapted from the IDL routine SUN_POS by CD Pike, which was adapted from a FORTRAN routine by B. Emerson (RGO).
(1) Find the apparent RA and Dec of the Sun on May 1, 1982 IDL> jdcnv, 1982, 5, 1,0 ,jd ;Find Julian date jd = 2445090.5 IDL> sunpos, jd, ra, dec IDL> print,adstring(ra,dec,2) 02 31 32.61 +14 54 34.9 The Astronomical Almanac gives 02 31 32.58 +14 54 34.9 so the error in SUNPOS for this case is < 0.5". (2) Find the apparent RA and Dec of the Sun for every day in 1997 IDL> jdcnv, 1997,1,1,0, jd ;Julian date on Jan 1, 1997 IDL> sunpos, jd+ dindgen(365), ra, dec ;RA and Dec for each day
Written by Michael R. Greason, STX, 28 October 1988. Accept vector arguments, W. Landsman April,1989 Eliminated negative right ascensions. MRG, Hughes STX, 6 May 1992. Rewritten using the 1993 Almanac. Keywords added. MRG, HSTX, 10 February 1994. Major rewrite, improved accuracy, always return values in degrees W. Landsman May, 1996 Added /RADIAN keyword, W. Landsman August, 1997 Converted to IDL V5.0 W. Landsman September 1997
[Home Page] [Software, Documentation] [IDL Documentation] [Quick Reference] [Feedback]