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It is on the celestial equator at both the left and right extremes of the sky chart, with the ecliptic (the orange dotted sine curve) passing through it. The first point of Aries , also known as the cusp of Aries , is the location of the March equinox (the vernal equinox in the northern hemisphere, and the autumnal equinox in the southern ...
Visualization of a celestial sphere. In astronomy and navigation, the celestial sphere is an abstract sphere that has an arbitrarily large radius and is concentric to Earth.All objects in the sky can be conceived as being projected upon the inner surface of the celestial sphere, which may be centered on Earth or the observer.
Astropy is a collection of software packages written in the Python programming language and designed for use in astronomy. [2] The software is a single, free, core package for astronomical utilities due to the increasingly widespread usage of Python by astronomers, and to foster interoperability between various extant Python astronomy packages. [3]
Coordinate systems in astronomy can specify an object's relative position in three-dimensional space or plot merely by its direction on a celestial sphere, if the object's distance is unknown or trivial. Spherical coordinates, projected on the celestial sphere, are analogous to the geographic coordinate system used on the surface of Earth.
The celestial spheres, or celestial orbs, were the fundamental entities of the cosmological models developed by Plato, Eudoxus, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Copernicus, and others. In these celestial models, the apparent motions of the fixed stars and planets are accounted for by treating them as embedded in rotating spheres made of an aetherial ...
The intersection of this plane with Earth's surface defines two geographical meridians (either one east and one west of the prime meridian, or else the prime meridian itself and its anti-meridian), and the intersection of the plane with the celestial sphere is the celestial meridian for that location and time.
The equatorial coordinate system on the celestial sphere. Star position is the apparent angular position of any given star in the sky, which seems fixed onto an arbitrary sphere centered on Earth. The location is defined by a pair of angular coordinates relative to the celestial equator: right ascension (α) and declination (δ).
The term night sky refers to the sky as seen at night. The term is usually associated with skygazing and astronomy, with reference to views of celestial bodies such as stars, the Moon, and planets that become visible on a clear night after the Sun has set. Natural light sources in a night sky include moonlight, starlight, and airglow, depending ...