Query within a box with angle

Question

Is there a way to execute a query with a box that is not aligned with the coordinate system but has some position angle?

I'm basically hoping there is a simple way to do a query at a position, with a width, length, and angle ...

Thanks

Answer 1

Using the q3c_poly_query(ra, dec, poly) function we support,  see here and the example https://github.com/segasai/q3c, you could query within a polygon once you know the vertices.

By rotating your bounding box by an angle you should be able to determine the new vertices (using trig ratios)  required by q3c_poly_query...

Comments

Thanks! I've tried that:

query = """
SELECT ra, dec, l, b, phot_g_mean_mag
FROM gaia_dr1.gaia_source
WHERE q3c_poly_query(ra, dec, '{0, 0, 0.2, 0, 0.2, 0.1, 0, 0.1}');
"""

but got some error back:

queryClientError: Error: function q3c_poly_query(double precision, double precision, unknown) is not unique
LINE 4: WHERE 't'=q3c_poly_query(ra, dec, '{0, 0, 0.2, 0, 0.2, 0.1, ...
                  ^
HINT:  Could not choose a best candidate function. You might need to add explicit type casts.

But then this query:
query = """
SELECT ra, dec, l, b, phot_g_mean_mag
FROM gaia_dr1.gaia_source
WHERE q3c_poly_query(cast(ra as double precision), cast(dec as double precision), '{0, 0, 0.2, 0, 0.2, 0.1, 0, 0.1}');
"""

returned the same error ...

Any idea what I am doing wrong?

---

This is a newish feature so we only support it using sync queries not ADQL unfortunately.  

Below is an example test of the q3c_in_poly query.

Notice the additional RA and Dec constraints slightly outside the range at the bottom; this is to speed up the search.

 select ra,dec from smash_dr2.object where q3c_in_poly(ra,dec,
 '{103.049994318506,-37.9621648388989, 103.055631230088,-37.9621648388989,
   103.049994318506,-37.9651915104376, 103.055631230088,-37.9651915104376}'::double precision[])
  and
ra >= 103.048 and ra <=103.056 and
  dec >= -37.966 and dec <= -37.961
 ;
        ra        |        dec
------------------+-------------------
 103.049994318506 | -37.9651915104376
 103.052963758628 | -37.9644048637405
 103.053451197365 | -37.9621655881433
(3 rows)

Hope this helps

---

Thanks for your replies to my question!
I was just wondering if you could explain what that means:
"This is a newish feature so we only support it using sync queries not ADQL unfortunately."
Can't I use q3c_poly in AstroLab?