ForHosting KIT · Developer Utilities

Declination from horizontal coords

This declination from horizontal coordinates calculator recovers an object's equatorial declination from its observed altitude and azimuth together with the observer's geographic latitude.

● BetaFree · in your browser

Run — free How it works & API

Use it from WebAPIEmailTelegramApp soon

Amateur astronomers, planetarium software authors, and students of spherical astronomy often measure or simulate a sky position in the local horizontal frame and need the matching equatorial declination without writing a full coordinate pipeline. The engine inverts the standard transform sin of delta equals sin of altitude times sin of latitude plus cos of altitude times cos of latitude times cos of azimuth, where azimuth is measured from north through east. All inputs and the result are in degrees; the response also echoes the normalized azimuth in zero to three hundred sixty, the intermediate sine of declination, and a short formula string for worksheets and unit tests. Computation is pure finite trigonometry with no network calls, no sampling, and no date-dependent ephemeris. Use the free browser widget for field checks and homework, or call the API at $0.002 per successful request when CI fixtures and teaching tools need the same deterministic result.

How to use it

Enter your values in the form above. The tool checks them before calculating and shows the result on the same page.

Check your inputs

Use the labels and units shown next to each field. If something is missing or outside the allowed range, the page points to the field to fix.

Use it again or automate it

Use the browser tool for individual checks and the API when you need the same capability in an automated workflow.

What you can do with it

Get an answer now

Enter one set of values and see the result without building a spreadsheet or script.

Compare scenarios

Change one value at a time and rerun the calculation to understand what affects the result.

Automate repeated work

Use the API when the same calculation needs to run inside your product or workflow.

FAQ

How do I use this capability?

Complete the fields above and run it on this page. The form highlights anything that needs attention.

For developers — API access

Everything on this page is available programmatically. This section is for teams who want to wire it into their own systems; everyone else can just use the tool above.

API endpoint

POSThttps://api.kit.forhosting.com/astro/declination-horizontal

Prefer to automate it? One authenticated POST creates the task; the result comes back by webhook or a signed link. The same capability also runs here on the web, by email and from Telegram — and soon from our app too.

Call it from your stack

curl -X POST https://api.kit.forhosting.com/astro/declination-horizontal \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $KIT_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"altitude":50,"azimuth":180,"latitude":40}'

const res = await fetch("https://api.kit.forhosting.com/astro/declination-horizontal", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: {
    "Authorization": `Bearer ${process.env.KIT_KEY}`,
    "Content-Type": "application/json"
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    "altitude": 50,
    "azimuth": 180,
    "latitude": 40
  })
});
const { task_id } = await res.json();

import os, requests

res = requests.post(
    "https://api.kit.forhosting.com/astro/declination-horizontal",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['KIT_KEY']}"},
    json={
    "altitude": 50,
    "azimuth": 180,
    "latitude": 40
},
)
task_id = res.json()["task_id"]

<?php
$res = file_get_contents("https://api.kit.forhosting.com/astro/declination-horizontal", false, stream_context_create([
  "http" => [
    "method"  => "POST",
    "header"  => "Authorization: Bearer " . getenv("KIT_KEY") . "\r\nContent-Type: application/json",
    "content" => '{"altitude":50,"azimuth":180,"latitude":40}',
  ],
]));
$task = json_decode($res, true);

body := bytes.NewBufferString(`{"altitude":50,"azimuth":180,"latitude":40}`)
req, _ := http.NewRequest("POST", "https://api.kit.forhosting.com/astro/declination-horizontal", body)
req.Header.Set("Authorization", "Bearer "+os.Getenv("KIT_KEY"))
req.Header.Set("Content-Type", "application/json")
res, _ := http.DefaultClient.Do(req)

Example request

{
  "altitude": 50,
  "azimuth": 180,
  "latitude": 40
}

Example response

{
  "task_id": "tsk_a1b2c3d4e5f6a1b2c3d4e5f6",
  "type": "astro.declination_horizontal",
  "status": "queued",
  "_links": {
    "result": "/tasks/tsk_…/result"
  }
}

The API is asynchronous: the call returns a task_id immediately and the result arrives by webhook. Polling is capped at 1 req/s per task.

Pricing

Per request$0.002

Published price — no tokens, no invented credits. A failed task is never charged.

Errors

HTTP	Code	Meaning
`401`	`unauthorized`	Missing or invalid API key.
`402`	`insufficient_balance`	Your balance doesn't cover the task price.
`404`	`unknown_type`	That task type doesn't exist.
`429`	`rate_limited`	Too many requests. Use the webhook instead of polling.

Read the full KIT documentation →