What is the rate of motion in Right Ascension for the asteroid?

Haseo Antares
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1. Homework Statement
This is an Astrometry problem. I am not sure or how exactly to proceed:



Data:

First off, I am unsure which data points to use. Should I use the values from right ascension or the values from the time index.

1 hour = 15 degrees
24 hours = 360 degrees

Image 01 Right Ascension: 23:03:53.99
Image 02 Right Ascension: 23:03:49.17

Image 01 RA - Image 02 RA = 23:03:53.99 -23:03:49.17 = 00:00:04.82

Image 01 Time Index: 12:16:58 UTC
Image 02 Time Index: 4:39:04 UTC

Image 01 Time Index - Image 02 Time Index = 4 hours 56 minutes 2 seconds = 17,762 seconds

Question:
Calculate the rates of motion in Right Ascension (seconds/hour) of the asteroid:

Homework Equations


Rate = Distance/Time

The Attempt at a Solution



With values from Right Ascension[/B]
4.82 sec/ 15 degrees = 0.32133 (3 repeats) sec/deg

OR

With values from Time Index
17,762 sec/ 15 degrees = 1184.13 (3 repeats) sec/deg
 
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You're supposed to calculate the rates in sec of arc/hour, which is not the same units as sec (of time) / deg.
 
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Likes Haseo Antares
Thank you for the response SteamKing.

I'm not sure I understand. Can you expand on that? I'm also confused on which value I am supposed to use - the Right Ascension value or the rime index value?
 
To solve this, I first used the units to work out that a= m* a/m, i.e. t=z/λ. This would allow you to determine the time duration within an interval section by section and then add this to the previous ones to obtain the age of the respective layer. However, this would require a constant thickness per year for each interval. However, since this is most likely not the case, my next consideration was that the age must be the integral of a 1/λ(z) function, which I cannot model.

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