Default backplanes

This page lists the backplanes which are automatically registered to every instance of planetmapper.BodyXY.


LON-GRAPHIC Planetographic longitude, positive W [deg]


LAT-GRAPHIC Planetographic latitude [deg]


LON-CENTRIC Planetocentric longitude [deg]


LAT-CENTRIC Planetocentric latitude [deg]


RA Right ascension [deg]


DEC Declination [deg]


PIXEL-X Observation x pixel coordinate [pixels]


PIXEL-Y Observation y pixel coordinate [pixels]


KM-X East-West distance in target plane [km]


KM-Y North-South distance in target plane [km]


PHASE Phase angle [deg]


INCIDENCE Incidence angle [deg]


EMISSION Emission angle [deg]


AZIMUTH Azimuth angle [deg]


LOCAL-SOLAR-TIME Local solar time [local hours]


DISTANCE Distance to observer [km]


RADIAL-VELOCITY Radial velocity away from observer [km/s]


DOPPLER Doppler factor, sqrt((1 + v/c)/(1 - v/c)) where v is radial velocity


LIMB-DISTANCE Distance above limb [km]


LIMB-LON-GRAPHIC Planetographic longitude of closest point on the limb [deg]


LIMB-LAT-GRAPHIC Planetographic latitude of closest point on the limb [deg]


RING-RADIUS Equatorial (ring) plane radius [km]


RING-LON-GRAPHIC Equatorial (ring) plane planetographic longitude [deg]


RING-DISTANCE Equatorial (ring) plane distance to observer [km]


Wireframe images

In addition to the above backplanes, a WIREFRAME backplane is also included by default in saved FITS files. This backplane contains a “wireframe” image of the body, which shows latitude/longitude gridlines, labels poles, displays the body’s limb etc. These wireframe images can be used to help orient the observations, and can be used as an overlay if you are creating figures from the FITS files.

The wireframe images are a graphical guide rather than containing any scientific data, so they are not registered like the other backplanes. Note that the wireframe images have a fixed size, so they will not be the same size as the data/mapped data (although the aspect ratio will be the same).