Create Coordinate Objects

The easiest interface to work with coordinates is through the SkyCoord class:

>>> import astropy.units as u
>>> from astropy.coordinates import SkyCoord
>>> from sunpy.coordinates import frames

>>> coord = SkyCoord(-100*u.arcsec, 500*u.arcsec, frame=frames.Helioprojective)
>>> coord = SkyCoord(x=-72241.0*u.km, y=361206.1*u.km, z=589951.4*u.km, frame=frames.Heliocentric)
>>> coord = SkyCoord(70*u.deg, -30*u.deg, frame=frames.HeliographicStonyhurst)
>>> coord
<SkyCoord (HeliographicStonyhurst: obstime=None, rsun=695700.0 km): (lon, lat) in deg
    (70., -30.)>

It is also possible to use strings to specify the frame but in that case make sure to explicitly import sunpy.coordinates as it registers sunpy’s coordinate frames the Astropy coordinates framework:

>>> import sunpy.coordinates

>>> coord = SkyCoord(-100*u.arcsec, 500*u.arcsec, frame='helioprojective', observer='earth')
>>> coord
<SkyCoord (Helioprojective: obstime=None, rsun=695700.0 km, observer=earth): (Tx, Ty) in arcsec
    (-100., 500.)>

SkyCoord and all coordinate frames support array coordinates. These work the same as single-value coordinates, but they store multiple coordinates in a single object. When you’re going to apply the same operation to many different coordinates, this is a better choice than a list of SkyCoord objects, because it will be much faster than applying the operation to each SkyCoord in a for loop:

>>> coord = SkyCoord([-500, 400]*u.arcsec, [100, 200]*u.arcsec, frame=frames.Helioprojective)
>>> coord
<SkyCoord (Helioprojective: obstime=None, rsun=695700.0 km, observer=None): (Tx, Ty) in arcsec
    [(-500.,  100.), ( 400.,  200.)]>
>>> coord[0]
<SkyCoord (Helioprojective: obstime=None, rsun=695700.0 km, observer=None): (Tx, Ty) in arcsec
    (-500.,  100.)>