Directions...

"PS" == Paul Stowe writes:

PS On 21 Nov 2003 17:24:52 -0400, (Steve
PS Willner) wrote:
In article , Paul Stowe
writes:
I was wondering if someone could help answer the question of how
close (...) are the following celestrial lines in space.

11 hrs right ascension, -7 degrees declimation
17 hrs right ascension, +68 degrees declination
It's an ordinary two-dimensional angle, not a solid angle.

What you want is one of the spherical triangle formulas:

cos A = sin(d1)*sin(d2) + cos(d1)*cos(d2)*cos(a1-a2)
[...]

PS But something's wrong then with the claimed directions since one
PS is suppose to point to Virgo and the other Leo... These are ~ 15°
PS apart, NOT 96°...

Yep, something's wrong. You can tell from the declinations alone that
these two directions differ by at least 75 degrees (68 - -7).

Virgo is somewhere around 12--14 h right ascension, 0 deg. declination
while Leo is somewhere around 10--12 h right ascension, 15 deg. declination.

PS So a followup question is, where do these reported direction
PS point?

The first is in the constellation Crater.

The second is in the constellation Draco.

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