Hand Book of Geodetic Astronomy

This handbook is an attempt to introduce a summary of the start of the universe, motion of planets, different calendars and the system of terrestrial and celestial coordinates. Time in geodetic astronomy is also introduced, which is an essential part of many applications and technologies such as GPS and others.According to the irregular motion of the earth, and to keep the terrestrial coordinates, celestial coordinates are modified to polar motion and seasonal variation.Some believe that using satellite observations could replace the astronomical determinations of the earth’s positions, this is not true because the satellite movements is similar to the movement of the planets and natural satellites. GPS observations can strengthen traditional networks which depend on astronomical observations.The effect of change of the earth’s axis of rotation either regular or due to sudden natural disasters could be understood from this work.This handbook also provides an explanation of determining astronomical latitude, longitude and azimuth, also the Black method to determine Black’s azimuth and the position line method for the determination of the latitude and longitude.