Star position

The position of stars on the sky are defined by a couple of angles, similar to the geographic latitude and longitude. These two angles - which refer to the celestial equator - are called "Declination" (abbrev. "δ" or "Dec") and "Right ascension" ("α" or "RA").
.

Ideally the two-dimensional coordinate system "α, δ" refers to an inertial frame of reference; the 3rd coordinate is the star distance which normally is used as an attribute of the individual star.

Star positions are changing in time, caused by
# precession and nutation - slow tilts of the Earth's axix with rates of 50" resp. 2" per year
# aberration and parallax - effects of the Earth's orbit around the sun
# proper motion of the individual stars.

The effects 1 and 2 are considered by so called mean places of stars, contrary to their apparent places as seen from the moving Earth. Usually the mean places refer to a special epoch, e.g. 1950.0 or 2000.0. The 3rd effect has to be handled individually.

The star positions "α, δ" are compiled in several star catalogues of different volume and accuracy. "Absolute" and very precise coordinates of 1000-3000 stars are collected in Fundamental catalogues, starting with the FK (Berlin ~1890) up to the modern FK6.
"Relative" coordinates of numerous stars are collected in Catalogues like the Bonner Durchmusterung (Germany 1852-1862, 200.000 rough positions), the SAO catalogue (USA 1966, 250.000 astrometric stars) or the Hipparcos and Tycho catalogue (110.000 and 2 million stars by space astrometry).

See also

* Star catalogue, FK4, FK6
* Equatorial coordinates, Ecliptic coordinates
* Vernal equinox, Yearbook
* annual aberration, apparent motion
* Geodetic astronomy, transit instruments

External links

* [http://www.telescope.org/information/astronomy/positionofstars.php How Astronomers describe the position of stars]
* [http://books.google.at/books?id=0Srje-dQBicC&pg=RA3-PA261&lpg=RA3-PA261&dq=%22star+position%22+astrometry&source=web&ots=EQrDuai_Ho&sig=Tkcz72tfnYORNRKfWv_9gcfuc9s&hl=de J.Kovalevsky, Fundamentals of Astrometry]
* [http://www.ari.uni-heidelberg.de/publikationen/apf/ Apparent Places of Fundamental Stars]