World Coordinates in C++

Arguments representing world coordinate positions are required in all three interfaces. There is a central C++ class called WorldCoords that handles the conversion between the various formats (H:M:S [+-]D:M:S, floating point degrees, char string,...) and equinox (1950, 2000, ...). If a user enters an astronomical object name in a user interface, it can first be resolved via a name server, such as SIMBAD or NED (using the Catalog library routines) to get the world coordinates. The default equinox is J2000, however any floating point number may be specified as the equinox when working with world coordinates. The world coordinate utilities support equinox conversion.

The interfaces for dealing with world coordinates are defined in the astrotcl package, which is a collection of astronomical software utilities. See the astrotcl documentation for details.