Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!lll-winken!uunet!mitel!sce!cognos!geovision!alastair From: alastair@geovision.uucp (Alastair Mayer) Newsgroups: sci.space Subject: Re: Need 3-D Cordinates of stars. Message-ID: <534@geovision.UUCP> Date: 29 Jan 89 20:22:21 GMT References: Reply-To: alastair@geovision.UUCP (Alastair Mayer) Organization: GeoVision Corp, Ottawa, Canada Lines: 27 In article writes: > > My friend is working on a simulator in his spair time. What little >there is of it. He would like to know if their is a place or person >he can get the 3-d cord. of stars relative to some point in the galaxy. > If so please write me at FNRJH@ALASKA > > Thanks. Robert J. Hale III Director ISECCo Actually, yes. Many astronomy books have such data - although often limited to the few hundred nearest and/or brightest. Check out star catalogs for data on more stars. The data is all relative to a very nearby point in the galaxy: here. And there's a catch - the 3-D coordinates are usually based on a spherical coordinate system: right ascension, declination, and radial distance. However, it's a fairly simple matter to convert those to Cartiesian XYZ coordinates, which I assume you're looking for. Now, if there's a source of *machine-readable* star catalog data, I'm sure a number of people might be interested. (Like me, for example) -- "The problem is not that spaceflight is expensive, | Alastair J.W. Mayer therefore only the government can do it, but that | alastair@geovision.UUCP only the government is doing spaceflight, therefore | al@BIX it is expensive." |