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I'm working on a project related to astronomy and orbital mechanics. I have some data for a celestial body(for example a satellite or moon...) like it's Azimuth/Elevation, sidereal time of observation, longitude and latitude of observation site... I can calculate Right ascension and declination of the target by using above information. Well, We have for example 200 observation of the celestial body sorted by time (t1,t2,...tn) How can I change these information to Longitude/Latitude of the celestial body in geographic map for each time? I want to create a map like this:

path
(source: qsl.net)

*** I use python in my project.

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Saeed
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Look at the example here http://www.stargazing.net/kepler/altaz.html You are working backwards from RA and DEC and you should get Long from the LST and LAT from setting ALT to 90 and rearrange.

Neil Parley
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  • actually I can calculate Longitude by using LST and Hour Angle. But Altitude is a little involute. Can you explain it? – Saeed Nov 13 '14 at 19:44
  • The spear of stars in RA and DEC rotate around the north pole. So at a latitude of 90 degrees at the north pole you have the pole star at DEC 90 above you. At a latitude of 30 degrees stars at DEC 30 will transit the zenith. Therefore it is just: Dec. of zenith = observer's latitude (and because you are calculating when the satellite is at the zenith you already have the latitude I think) – Neil Parley Nov 14 '14 at 08:17