Simple sexagesimal angles

Table: Values of column item TBLFMT for sexagesimal angles in tables

TBLFMT	Units	Example	Corresponding
specifier			angle
DEGREES	degrees	30:00:00	30$^{\circ}$
HOURS	hours	2:00:00	30$^{\circ}$ or $2^{{\rm h}}$
ANGLE	varies	+30:00:00	30$^{\circ}$
ARCMIN	minutes of arc	30:00	30$^{'}$
ARCSEC	seconds of arc	30.0	30 $\hspace{-0.05em}\raisebox{-0.5ex} {$^{'\hspace{-0.1em}'}$} \hspace{-0.7em}.\hspace{-0.05em}$
TIMEMIN	minutes of time	30	$30^{{\rm m}}$
TIMESEC	seconds of time	30.0	$30^{{\rm s}}$

- signed values interpreted as degrees, unsigned values as hours.

For simple sexagesimal angles the TBLFMT item has the form:

TBLFMT=units

where units is the units of the angle. The permitted values are shown in Table . For example, an angle tabulated in units of degrees would be represented as:

TBLFMT=DEGREES

The angles tabulated must use a colon as a sexagesimal separator (as shown in Table ). Columns of angles stored in this form must obey the following constraints:

• they should be in units of hours, degrees, minutes of arc or time or seconds of arc or time,

• they should contain no embedded spaces,

• a colon (`:') should be used to separate the hours or degrees, minutes and seconds,

• if the units are hours or degrees then optionally either the seconds or the minutes and seconds may be omitted,

• small angles expressed in minutes of arc or time may optionally be subdivided into either seconds (with a colon as a separator) or decimal minutes,

• small angles expressed in seconds of arc or time may be represented either with or without a decimal fraction.

These simple sexagesimal formats are suitable for use in both free-format and fixed-format STLs. Indeed, they are the only way of representing sexagesimal angles in free-format STLs.

If a fixed-format STL is being read then the total width of the column (in characters) must be appended to the specifier. Figure  shows an example of this option; here column RA has a width of nine characters and column DEC a width of eight. The following files contain examples of the use of these options:

/star/share/cursa/simple.TXT
/star/share/cursa/complex.TXT
/star/share/cursa/propmotn.TXT