Astronomy Basics; The Celestial Coordinate System - Celestron NexStar 8i Instruction Manual

NexStar
Up to this point, this manual covered the assembly and basic operation of your telescope.
However, to understand your telescope more thoroughly , you need to know a little about the night sky. This
section deals with observational astronomy in general and includes information on the night sky and polar
alignment.
T h e C e l e s t i a l C o o r d i n a t e S y s t e m
T h e C e l e s t i a l C o o r d i n a t e S y s t e m
To help find objects in the sky, astronomers use a celestial coordinate system that is similar to our
geographical coordinate system here on Earth. The celestial coordinate system has poles, lines of longitude
and latitude, and an equator. For the most part, these remain fixed against the background stars.
The celestial equator runs 360 degrees around the Earth and separates the northern celestial hemisphere
from the southern. Like the Earth's equator, it bears a reading of zero degrees. On Earth this would be
latitude. However, in the sky this is referred to as declination, or DEC for short. Lines of declination are
named for their angular distance above and below the celestial equator. The lines are broken down into
degrees, minutes of arc, and seconds of arc. Declination readings south of the equator carry a minus sign (-
) in front of the coordinate and those north of the celestial equator are either blank (i.e., no designation) or
preceded by a plus sign (+).
The celestial equivalent of longitude is called Right Ascension, or R.A. for short. Like the Earth's lines of
longitude, they run from pole to pole and are evenly spaced 15 degrees apart. Although the longitude lines
are separated by an angular distance, they are also a measure of time. Each line of longitude is one hour
apart from the next. Since the Earth rotates once every 24 hours, there are 24 lines total. As a result, the
R.A. coordinates are marked off in units of time. It begins with an arbitrary point in the constellation of
Pisces designated as 0 hours, 0 minutes, 0 seconds. All other points are designated by how far (i.e., how
long) they lag behind this coordinate after it passes overhead moving toward the west.
Figure 7-1
.
The celestial sphere seen from the outside showing R.A. and DEC
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