Hour angle

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In astronomy, an object's hour angle (HA) is defined as the difference between the current local sidereal time (LST) and the right ascension (α) of the object:

HA_object = LST - α_object

Thus, the object's hour angle indicates how much sidereal time has passed since the object was on the local meridian. It is also the angular distance between the object and the meridian, measured in hours (1 hour = 15 degrees). For example, if an object has an hour angle of 2.5 hours, it transited across the local meridian 2.5 hours ago (measured using sidereal time), and is currently 37.5 degrees west of the meridian. Negative hour angles indicate the time until the next transit across the local meridian. Of course, an hour angle of zero means the object is currently on the local meridian.

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This article originates from Jason Harris' Astroinfo which comes along with KStars, a Desktop Planetarium for Linux/KDE. See http://edu.kde.org/kstars/index.phtml