[GRASS-dev] Galaxy coordinate system

[Hamish]

Yann wrote:
> I would like to map the Milky Way stars and run some
> analysis on it.
> 
> Is there support for Milky Way and Galaxy coordinate systems
> in general in GRASS?

Not specifically, but depending on your reference frame the
simple XY and lat/lon+spheroid locations can set up arbitrary
Cartesian or polar coordinate systems as you like.


fwiw--
Some time ago I had a look at importing a star catalog as an
example of working with sparse 3D points in GRASS, but that
was earth-centric so a lat/lon location did ok for azimuth and
altitude. A big problem there at the time was finding a catalog
with a truly FOSS-friendly license.

Note GRASS 7 and its wxGUI location wizard have ellipsoid tables
and support for the planetary bodies in our solar system. I need
help with the final 5% of the python coding to finish that off
in the loc'n wizard (see trac).  Longitude represented as 0-360
has had support in the GRASS raster engine for a number of years.

see also  http://grasswiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Planetary_mapping


Hamish