Double Star Calculator - Orbit Determination

The Double Star Calculator - Orbit Determination processes historical measurements of the separation and position angle of a double star and attempts to calculate its orbital elements. To perform the calculation, a whitespace-separated list of measurements is required. Each line of the list must consist of three entries: the Besselian epoch of observation, the measured separation in arcseconds, and the measured position angle in degrees.

Simply press the [SUBMIT DATA] button to see how the tool works with the provided default data. Use [CLEAR ALL] to empty all input fields and prepare for new data, or click [RESTORE DEFAULT] to reload the default data. The Measurement Data field is mandatory; use [CLEAR] to empty this specific field. The Measurement Error fields are optional parameters used in the calculation of the orbital elements.

The Initialization section allows selection of the type of initialization (Simple, Thiele-Innes, or Orbital Elements). Verbose controls the level of detail in the returned results, and Seeds defines the number of different random seeds used in the orbit calculation.

The WDS Discoverer, Observation Epoch, and Start/End Epoch parameters are also optional and, if provided, will be used in the generated report and diagrams. Unless the Start/End Epoch parameters are set manually, the start and end epochs are automatically calculated based on the determined orbital period.

The parameter section Initialization with Orbital Elements is enabled if the initialization is set to Orbital Elements. In this case, the entered orbital elements are used as an initial guess for the orbit determination. This is, for example, useful for refining an existing orbital solution.

Notes: The number of measurements and the number of selected seeds have a significant impact on the processing time, which may take several minutes in the worst case. A detailed description of the Double Star Calculator is available in the Double Star Calculations Help - Orbit Determination.

Measurement Data (Mandatory)
Optional Arguments
ρ error
(± arcseconds)
θ error
(± degree)
Initialization Verbose Seeds
WDS Discoverer Observation Date Start Epoch End Epoch

Please be patient. Depending on the configuration and the number of measurements, processing may take anywhere from a few seconds to over a minute.

Initialization with Orbital Elements