Note
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Converting between Helioprojective and AltAz Coordinate#
How to find the Sun in the sky as viewed from a particular location.
import astropy.units as u
from astropy.coordinates import AltAz, EarthLocation, SkyCoord
from astropy.time import Time
from sunpy.coordinates import frames, sun
We use SkyCoord
to define the center of the Sun.
Now we establish our location on the Earth, in this case let’s consider a high altitude balloon launched from Fort Sumner, NM.
Fort_Sumner = EarthLocation(lat=34.4900*u.deg, lon=-104.221800*u.deg, height=40*u.km)
Now lets convert this to a local measurement of Altitude and Azimuth.
frame_altaz = AltAz(obstime=Time(obstime), location=Fort_Sumner)
sun_altaz = c.transform_to(frame_altaz)
print(f'Altitude is {sun_altaz.T.alt} and Azimuth is {sun_altaz.T.az}')
Altitude is 37.782959993653094 deg and Azimuth is 121.34217350367328 deg
Next let’s check this calculation by converting it back to helioprojective. We should get our original input which was the center of the Sun. To go from Altitude/Azimuth to Helioprojective, you will need the distance to the Sun. solar distance. Define distance with sunpy’s almanac.
distance = sun.earth_distance(obstime)
b = SkyCoord(az=sun_altaz.T.az, alt=sun_altaz.T.alt, distance=distance, frame=frame_altaz)
sun_helio = b.transform_to(frames.Helioprojective(observer="earth"))
print(f'The helioprojective point is {sun_helio.T.Tx}, {sun_helio.T.Ty}')
The helioprojective point is 0.3736719261032472 arcsec, 0.13601753457547278 arcsec
Total running time of the script: (0 minutes 9.544 seconds)