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Re: [Orekit Users] Right ascension and declination
Le 07/12/2017 à 12:00, Philippe Demoulin a écrit :
> Hi everybody,
Hi Philippe,
>
> I am completely new to Orekit, and I followed the 3-day course at CS
> last week (thanks Luc !).
You're welcome.
> I just started with a small program to
> compute the right ascension and declination of Jupiter :
>
> AbsoluteDate date = new AbsoluteDate(2017, 12, 6, 10, 17, 0.0,
> TimeScalesFactory.getUTC());
>
> CelestialBody body = CelestialBodyFactory.getJupiter() ;
> Frame eme2000 = FramesFactory.getEME2000();
>
> Vector3D bodyInEME2000 = body.getPVCoordinates(date,
> eme2000).getPosition();
>
> double rightAscension = bodyInEME2000.getAlpha() ;
> if (rightAscension < 0) rightAscension = rightAscension + 2.
> * FastMath.PI ;
> double declination = bodyInEME2000.getDelta() ;
> System.out.format(Locale.US, "At %s UTC, %s RA = %10.5f°, DEC
> = %10.5f° %n",
> date, body.getName(),
> FastMath.toDegrees(rightAscension),
> FastMath.toDegrees(declination)) ;
>
> The output of this program is :
> "At 2017-12-06T10:17:00.000 UTC, Jupiter RA = 219.81633°, DEC =
> -14.44226°"
>
> Computing the same parameters with the JPL Horizons system
> (https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi) gives RA = 219.81392° and DEC =
> -14.44186°, i.e. a difference of 8.7" in RA and -1.4" in DEC.
I tried to run the same from Horizon, ang I got the following:
2017-Dec-06 10:17 14 39 15.36 -14 26 29.4 -1.72 5.51
6.24293497155197 -15.3706304 32.3247 /L 5.5594
So it is rather RA = 219.81400° (14H 39min 15.36sec) and DEC =
-14.4415°. My input on the HORIZONS system was:
Ephemeris Type [change] : OBSERVER
Target Body [change] : Jupiter [599]
Observer Location [change] : Geocentric [500]
Time Span [change] : Start=2017-12-06 10:10,
Stop=2017-12-06 10:20,
Step=1 m
Table Settings [change] : defaults
Display/Output [change] : download/save (plain text file)
>
> Do you have any idea of the reason of these different answers ?
The reason for the discrepancy is that Horizons computes what the
observer will "see". As Jupiter is far from Earth, the light
coming from it takes almost 52 minutes to arrive at Earth center.
So what we see at 10:17 corresponds to a Jupiter position at about
09:25. So we have to take into account Jupiter motion.
The simplest way to do that is to compute Jupiter position at photon
travel start and Earth position at photo travel end, both in the Solar
System barycenter frame, and then to compute the difference of these
two positions. Here is how I did it:
CelestialBody body = CelestialBodyFactory.getJupiter() ;
Frame icrf = FramesFactory.getICRF();
Vector3D earth = CelestialBodyFactory.
getEarth().
getPVCoordinates(date, icrf).
getPosition();
double delay = 0;
// search signal transit date,
// computing the signal travel in inertial frame
final double cReciprocal = 1.0 / Constants.SPEED_OF_LIGHT;
double delta;
int count = 0;
do {
double previous = delay;
Vector3D bodyP = body.
getPVCoordinates(date.shiftedBy(-delay), icrf).
getPosition();
delay = Vector3D.distance(bodyP, earth) * cReciprocal;
delta = FastMath.abs(delay - previous);
} while (count++ < 10 && delta >= 2 * FastMath.ulp(delay));
Vector3D bodyEME2000 = body.
getPVCoordinates(date.shiftedBy(-delay), icrf).
getPosition().
subtract(earth);
double alphaDeg =
FastMath.toDegrees(MathUtils.normalizeAngle(bodyInEME2000.getAlpha(),
FastMath.PI));
double deltaDeg = FastMath.toDegrees(bodyInEME2000.getDelta());
System.out.format(Locale.US,
"At %s UTC arrival time, %s light time = %11.6fs," +
" RA = %s, DEC = %s%n",
date, body.getName(), delay,
toHMinSec(alphaDeg), toDegMinSec(deltaDeg));
with the two helper functions
private String toHMinSec(double aDeg) {
double s = FastMath.abs(aDeg / 15);
int h = (int) FastMath.copySign(FastMath.floor(s), aDeg);
s = (s - FastMath.abs(h)) * 60;
int m = (int) FastMath.floor(s);
s = (s - m) * 60;
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
Formatter f = new Formatter(sb);
f.format(Locale.US, "%02dH %02dmin %6.3fsec", h, m, s);
f.close();
return sb.toString();
}
private String toDegMinSec(double aDeg) {
double s = FastMath.abs(aDeg);
int d = (int) FastMath.copySign(FastMath.floor(s), aDeg);
s = (s - FastMath.abs(d)) * 60;
int m = (int) FastMath.floor(s);
s = (s - m) * 60;
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
Formatter f = new Formatter(sb);
f.format(Locale.US, "%d° %02d' %6.3f''", d, m, s);
f.close();
return sb.toString();
}
Notice the use of MathUtils.normalizeAngle (from Hipparchus) to ensure
the right ascension is centered around PI (i.e. it lies between 0 and
2PI).
An important part is that Jupiter position and earth position are *not*
computed at the same time, but they are nevertheless subtracted to
compute the light travel.
With this setup, I get:
At 2017-12-06T10:17:00.000 UTC arrival time, Jupiter light time =
3115.254693s, RA = 14H 39min 15.359sec, DEC = -14° 26' 29.450''
So it is consistent with the results I get from Horizons.
For a real accurate observation, we should in fact also take into
account the aberration of light (i.e. the fact that Earth moves with
a non-negligible speed in the ICRF frame, so there is a velocity
composition to compute at photons arrival). You can see an example
of such computation in the Rugged library (which is built on top
of Orekit). The effect is however much smaller than the effect of
light time (order of magnitude of the milliarcsecond, whereas as
you noticed light time is several arc seconds).
best regards,
Luc
>
> Thank you for your help.
>
> Philippe Demoulin
> Institut royal d'Aéronomie Spatiale de Belgique
> Avenue circulaire 3, 1180 Uccle