A negative sign in front of the latitude indicates south and a positive sign north. Or Wonglepong, Australia, situated along that continent's east coast at –27.0° south, 153.2° east. Take Tuscaloosa, Alabama, for example, which is located at latitude +33.2° north, longitude 87.6° west. It defines the the zero (0°) longitude line just as the equator defines the 0° latitude line.Įach city has a unique latitude and longitude. The prime meridian is an imaginary line that runs through the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, United Kingdom, and extends to the North and South Poles.

To find anyplace on the globe of Earth, you only need to know its latitude, the distance in degrees north or south of the equator, and longitude, the distance in degrees east or west of the prime meridian. Then I realized they were just numbers like latitude and longitude, except applied to the stars. When I got started in astronomy at age 11, they were a little scary. Sooner or later every novice skywatcher runs into the terms RA and Dec., short for right ascension and declination.

The sky is draped in an invisible coordinate grid that will help you easily find any object you wish, the same as you would locate a city on a map.

Stellarium web find alt and az