Kinematic Distance Calculation Tool

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This tool calculates kinematic distances in the same manner used in Wenger et al. (2018). It is useful for quickly calculating the kinematic distance of a single object, but users who wish to perform this calculation on many objects or wish to change the default parameters of the calculation should download the code on Github and run it locally. If you use this tool or code in published work, please reference the paper, the ASCL entry, and the DOI: zenodo.1166001.

Given a Galactic longitude, latitude, LSR velocity, and LSR velocity uncertainty, this tool calculates the kinematic distance using three different methods:

For more details about the calculation (including limitations), please see Wenger et al. (2018). If you have questions or suggestions, please contact me.

Galactic longitude (degrees)
Note: Kinematic distances are inaccurate in the direction of the Galactic center and Galactic anti-center
Galactic latitude (degrees)
Note: These distances assume the target has latitude 0 degrees. This latitude is only used to correct the LSR velocity with the updated solar motion parameters.
LSR velocity (km/s)
LSR velocity uncertainty (km/s)