Enter Coordinates
The Enter Coordinates dialog is used by the Astrometric Calibration tool to input the right ascension and declination of a marked reference point.
This dialog opens automatically when you click on a new point in Marking mode.
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Enter Coordinates Properties |
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Right Ascension, Declination |
Specifies the right ascension and declination, separated by a comma (see description, below). Use the [+] [x] and [Folder] buttons to add or delete the currently displayed entry or populate the entire history list with coordinate pairs opened from a text file.. |
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Weight |
Specifies the weight of the point for use in computing the plate solution. The default weight is 1. |
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[Mark] |
Click this button to mark the current location and add its coordinates to the calibration list. |
This dialog opens automatically after you click on a point that has not been previously marked. The only information must specify is the right ascension and declination of the point, but you can also change the weight of the point if you want it to have more or less influence than the other calibration points. The two buttons on the right side allow you to accept or discard the point being marked:
Click [Mark] to finish marking the point and accept the values you entered.
Click [Cancel] to abort the point and erase its marker.
To completely replace the contents of the coordinates history list, click the [Folder] button. The coordinates will appear in a text file, one coordinate pair per line, and in the format you see in the list box.
The Right Ascension, Declination field is very tolerance of different formats for hours, degrees, minutes, and seconds. However, you must use only 1 comma to separate the right ascension and declination entries. A comma cannot be used between the separate parts of the RA and Dec, such as between hours and minutes. Mira supports a number of different formats for RA and Dec, as shown in the table below. Note that the entries in the same table row do not have to be used together; for example, you might enter the coordinate as
3h46m45.808s, 63.357592
However, the easiest way of separating the coordinate parts is usually just to insert a blank space as shown in the table. The number of trailing decimal places is free to choose as you wish. A "Delimiter" is used to separate the parts of a field, such as the right ascension "hours" and "minutes". The examples below use a blank space as a delimiter, but other options are listed at the bottom of the table.
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Examples of RA and Dec Formats |
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Right Ascension |
Declination |
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3 46 45.808 |
63 21 27.32 |
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3 46.7634666 |
63 21.45553 |
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3.77939111 |
63.3575922 |
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3 46 45 |
63 21 |
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Delimiters |
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" ' : / h m s |
" ' : / d m s |