How to do?

Miriade . rts

Rise, transit and set

What about Miriade.rts

Miriade.rts is a service of the IMCCE's Virtual Observatory project allowing the computation of the rise, transit and set of the Sun, Moon, and planets.

The service can be used as a Web service and easily integrated into your own software (cf. Miriade.rts main page). We propose some examples of client programs for that. The service can also be used through a dedicated Web form. This page describes how to do with some of the input parameters of the service.

The ephemerides of the planets, the Moon and the Sun are computed with the IMCCE's INPOP 4-D planetary theory.

How to use Miriade.rts service?

Several methods can be helpful:
  • use the query forms made available on the IMCCE's Solar system portal.
  • implement yourself the Miriade Web service rts method into your own software (see client templates) or call the HTTP request on the command line interface using non-interactive file transfert programs such as wget or curl (see the how to consume section).
  • use the Miriade services through a VO-compliant software which implements them, such as Aladin and the Miriade plugin, or other VO applications. For example you can directly submit a request to Miriade.rts in the Location entry of the File → Load Table menu of Topcat software.

How to define the computation epoch?

The epoch must be formatted as a textual english date (in accordance with the GNU syntax of dates), or as a julian day or as an ISO 8601 date.

Examples (non exhaustive) of valid dates:

  • now
  • 2006-01-27T1:53:34
  • 2453762.529467592
  • 10 September 2000
  • +1 day
  • +1 week 2 days 4 hours 2 seconds
  • next Thursday
  • last Monday

The timescale of the epoch is UTC. The period of time for which ephemeris can be computed is 1951-01-01 12h (2433647.0) to 2024-12-31 12h (2460676.0).

Restriction: the seconds must be an integer number in the ISO format. For a time resolution better than a second, please use the julian period.

Tolerance: the character 'T' of the ISO 8601 format can be omitted.

How to define the coordinates of the observer?

To define the observer's location, use the IAU code of the observatory of your choice, or provide the geographical coordinates formatted as a geographic location URI:
[+-]latitude, [+-]longitude
or as the less recommended free format:
[+-]longitude [+-]latitude

The longitude and latitude must be expressed in decimal degrees in the WGS84 reference system, and the altitude must be expressed in meters above the mean sea level. Longitudes are negative toward West. The sign + of the longitude and latitude can be omitted. If not, use the encoding %2B instead of the symbol + which is not correctly transmitted in the URL.

Example for Paris observatory (2°20′11.4874" E, 48°50′11.32" N, 67 m): 

-observer=%2B48.836477778, 2.336524278, 67.0

The former arguments longitude and latitude are still usable, but they are deprecated, and we encourage you to update your code.