SOFA (Astronomy)
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| This article needs references that appear in reliable third-party publications. Primary sources or sources affiliated with the subject are generally not sufficient for a Wikipedia article. Please add more appropriate citations from reliable sources. (December 2007) |
| Stable release | 2007-08-10 / 28 August 2007 |
|---|---|
| Type | Numerical library |
| License | SOFA Software License (free for non-profit private or educational use, commercial use is negotiable) |
| Website | http://www.iau-sofa.rl.ac.uk/ |
The SOFA (Standards of Fundamental Astronomy) software libraries are a collection of subroutines that implement official IAU algorithms for astronomical computations.
At present (2007) they are available only in Fortran source code format, but the documentation reports plans to make a C version available, too.
The subroutines in the libraries cover the following areas:
- Calendars
- Time scales
- Earth's rotation and sidereal time
- Ephemerides (limited precision)
- Precession, nutation, polar motion
- Proper motion
- Star catalog conversions

