The discussion centers around the methods for calculating the positions of stars and planets in the night sky, with a focus on mathematical approaches and programming solutions.
Participants generally agree on the utility of the Astropy library for calculating astronomical positions, but there is no consensus on a specific mathematical formula as requested by the initial poster.
The discussion lacks specific mathematical formulas or detailed explanations of the calculations involved in determining celestial positions.
Individuals interested in astronomy, programming in Python, or those seeking to understand celestial navigation may find this discussion useful.
e.bar.goum said:If you are able to program in python, there's an excellent library called astropy that can be used to give the position of an astronomical object at any time at any place on Earth, in all the common coordinate systems. If you're not familiar with how stars are located in the sky, I suggest you look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celestial_coordinate_system and https://dept.astro.lsa.umich.edu/ugactivities/Labs/coords/index.html