I live in Western Washington State where over half of the year is
cloudy and rainy. Clear skies are rare most of the year. In which
case, I've never found it practical to own a good telescope and don't
have much experience with one.

However, I have read about the complex system that the astronomy
community uses, which is necessary to figure directional reference in
the universe. Like others, I have a very general idea of how it works,
but still lack much in the way of being able to think of it in a
practical manner.

It would seem that in some way a method could be devised so that any of
these coordinates might be better visualized. For us laymen, one of
many confusing things about the universe is there is no up or down --
north, east, south or west.

Knowing where the HST is located in relation to the earth at the time a
particular image is taken along with the direction the telescope is
aimed, would be very interesting for me. Earth based telescopes would
be equally as important. Still there are others who would say, "The
pictures are coming from somewhere out there and that's all I care
about."

Computer software may have already been created to show what direction
each of the various telescope images are coming from ..... ?

I've often thought that 3 dimensional software models might be designed
with the ability to show the actual aim trajectory and in some cases,
even the target of most telescopes. I'd think that this software could
be designed, so that by entering the HST and any earth based telescope
coordinates into the software program, you'd have the desired results
for that particular day.

Needless to say, a 3D model of the Solar System in combination with the
Milky Way Galaxy, the Local Group and so on would certainly help to
better envision the BIG picture of at least a very small part of the
universe.