Formatting Coordinate Strings#

Getting a string representation of a coordinate is most powerfully approached by treating the components (e.g., RA and Dec) separately.

Examples#

To get the string representation of a coordinate:

>>> from astropy.coordinates import ICRS
>>> from astropy import units as u
>>> coo = ICRS(187.70592*u.degree, 12.39112*u.degree)
>>> str(coo.ra) + ' ' + str(coo.dec)
'187d42m21.312s 12d23m28.032s'

To get better control over the formatting, you can use the angles’ to_string() method (see Working with Angles for more). For example:

>>> rahmsstr = coo.ra.to_string(u.hour)
>>> str(rahmsstr)
'12h30m49.4208s'
>>> decdmsstr = coo.dec.to_string(u.degree, alwayssign=True)
>>> str(decdmsstr)
'+12d23m28.032s'
>>> rahmsstr + ' ' + decdmsstr
u'12h30m49.4208s +12d23m28.032s'

You can also use Python’s format string method to create more complex string expressions, such as IAU-style coordinates or even full sentences:

>>> (f'SDSS J{coo.ra.to_string(unit=u.hourangle, sep="", precision=2, pad=True)}'
...  f'{coo.dec.to_string(sep="", precision=2, alwayssign=True, pad=True)}')
'SDSS J123049.42+122328.03'
>>> f'The galaxy M87, at an RA of {coo.ra.hour:.2f} hours and Dec of {coo.dec.deg:.1f} degrees, has an impressive jet.'
'The galaxy M87, at an RA of 12.51 hours and Dec of 12.4 degrees, has an impressive jet.'