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The galactic coordinate system is a celestial coordinate system that uses the Milky Way as its fundamental plane. The latitudinal angle is called the galactic latitude , and the longitudinal angle is called the galactic longitude . This coordinate system is useful for studying the galaxy itself. For example, you might want to know how the density of stars changes as a function of galactic latitude, to how much the disk of the Milky Way is flattened.
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
Celestial coordinate system
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