<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN"> <!--Converted with LaTeX2HTML 98.1p1 release (March 2nd, 1998) originally by Nikos Drakos (nikos@cbl.leeds.ac.uk), CBLU, University of Leeds * revised and updated by: Marcus Hennecke, Ross Moore, Herb Swan * with significant contributions from: Jens Lippmann, Marek Rouchal, Martin Wilck and others --> <HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>Right Ascension</TITLE> <META NAME="description" CONTENT="Right Ascension"> <META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="vol2"> <META NAME="resource-type" CONTENT="document"> <META NAME="distribution" CONTENT="global"> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <LINK REL="STYLESHEET" HREF="vol2.css"> <LINK REL="next" HREF="node558.html"> <LINK REL="previous" HREF="node556.html"> <LINK REL="up" HREF="node555.html"> <LINK REL="next" HREF="node558.html"> </HEAD> <BODY > <!--Navigation Panel--> <A NAME="tex2html8495" HREF="node558.html"> <IMG WIDTH="37" HEIGHT="24" ALIGN="BOTTOM" BORDER="0" ALT="next" SRC="icons.gif/next_motif.gif"></A> <A NAME="tex2html8492" HREF="node555.html"> <IMG WIDTH="26" HEIGHT="24" ALIGN="BOTTOM" BORDER="0" ALT="up" SRC="icons.gif/up_motif.gif"></A> <A NAME="tex2html8486" HREF="node556.html"> <IMG WIDTH="63" HEIGHT="24" ALIGN="BOTTOM" BORDER="0" ALT="previous" SRC="icons.gif/previous_motif.gif"></A> <A NAME="tex2html8494" HREF="node1.html"> <IMG WIDTH="65" HEIGHT="24" ALIGN="BOTTOM" BORDER="0" ALT="contents" SRC="icons.gif/contents_motif.gif"></A> <BR> <B> Next:</B> <A NAME="tex2html8496" HREF="node558.html">Declination</A> <B> Up:</B> <A NAME="tex2html8493" HREF="node555.html">Required stellar data</A> <B> Previous:</B> <A NAME="tex2html8487" HREF="node556.html">Object name</A> <BR> <BR> <!--End of Navigation Panel--> <H3><A NAME="SECTION003221200000000000000"> Right Ascension</A> </H3> Right Ascensions are tabulated in decimal degrees in the archive. This may be used with the column label RA, which conforms to the archive convention [<A HREF="node649.html#E92">5</A>]. While this is a convenient machine-readable form, it is not very user-friendly, as most astronomical catalogs use sexagesimal time units. <P> Fortunately, the MIDAS table commands will accept sexagesimal input (see the on-line HELP for <TT>CREATE/COLUMN</TT> and <TT>NAME/COLUMN</TT>), in almost any human-readable form. By using the R11.6 format specification for the Right Ascension columns in the *.fmt file, existing ASCII tables can easily be converted to MIDAS table format. This <I>stores</I> the column as an angle in degrees, though it is <I>displayed</I> as hours, minutes, and seconds by the <TT>READ/TABLE</TT> command. <P> CAUTION: your ASCII file <B>must</B> have the <TT>.dat</TT> extension, or it will not be read correctly! <P> <BR><HR> <ADDRESS> <I>Petra Nass</I> <BR><I>1999-06-15</I> </ADDRESS> </BODY> </HTML>
