Topocentric Positions of Major Solar System Objects and Bright Stars

This data service provides topocentric position data for the major Solar System bodies and selected bright stars. The output includes either right ascension and declination in reference to the true equator and equinox of date, or the zenith distance and azimuth . The distance to the object is included for Solar System bodies.

Data will be provided for the years 1800 through 2050.

Use the buttons under Location to find coordinates of cities or towns in the U.S. or its territories, or to convert between Degrees-Minutes-Seconds (DMS) and Decimal Degrees.

Be sure to read the Notes section for definitions and additional details on the data.

US Location For example: Washington, DC

City

State or Territory

The place name you enter above must be a city or town in the U.S. The place's location will be retrieved from a list of over 22,000 places. Either upper- or lower-case letters or a combination can be used. Spell out place name prefixes, as in "East Orange", "Fort Lauderdale", "Mount Vernon", etc. The only exception is "St.", which is entered as an abbreviation with a period, as in "St. Louis". You need only enter as many characters as will unambiguously identify the place.

Position type

Celestial Object of Interest

Date Format: MM/DD/YYYY

Time (UT1) Format HH:MM:SS.S

Tabular Interval (0.1 to 9999.9 days, hours, minutes, seconds)

Iterations (1 to 9999)

Location Coordinates in decimal degrees, North and East are positive. For example: 38.9072, -77.0369

Latitude

Longitude

Location Label Custom label for printed output. For example: Washington, DC

Need coordinates? Try NGA's GEOnet Names Server (GNS)
Need U.S. coordinates? Try the USGS Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) .

Height (-90 to 10999 meters)

meters

Notes

UT1

UT1 is a form of Universal Time affected by irregularities in the Earth's rotation, and is the modern version of mean solar time on the Greenwich meridian.

Ephemeris

The positions of the Solar System bodies are based on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's DE405 ephemeris (Standish, E.M. 1998, "JPL Planetary and Lunar Ephemerides, DE405/LE405", JPL IOM 312.F-98-048)

Definitions

Distance: The distance from the observers position on the surface of the Earth to the Solar System object, given in Astronomical Units (Kilometers for the Moon). Distance is not calculated for stars.