Astro::Coords
=============

This module provides an object oriented approach to astronomical
coordinate transformations. It can be used to convert between
J2000, B1950, Galactic and super Galactic coordinates.  It can
calculate the azimuth and elevation of a source specified in
equatorial coordinates, orbital elements or by name (if a planet).
It can also determine whether the specified coordinates are observable
for the given telescope and determine rise and set times. Doppler
corrections can also be calculated.

This software is still a beta release but is in use in a production
environment. The interfaces may still change slightly.

It is a wrapper class around Astro::PAL that simplifies the handling of
astronomical coordinate systems.

Requirements
------------

This class uses Astro::PAL, Astro::Telescope as well as
DateTime and Time::Piece.

This release begins the migration from Time::Piece to DateTime
for specification of epochs. Both are supported at present but
at some point Time::Piece support may be removed.

Building
--------

  perl Build.PL
  ./Build
  ./Build test
  ./Build install


Author
------

This module was written by Tim Jenness <[email protected]>
of the Joint Astronomy Centre.

Copyright (C) 2008-2012 Science and Technologiy Facilities Council.
Copyright (C) 2001-2005 Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council.
All Rights Reserved.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software
Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later
version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,but WITHOUT ANY
WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with
this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple
Place,Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307, USA

TODO
----

  + Add support for JPL ephemeris when calculating planet positions
  + Add support for Horizons web service when generating positions
    of planetary moons