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Title, I tried converting the coordinates from here to rectangular but it seems off.

display name
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  • JPL Horizons. – Mark Adler Apr 29 '17 at 23:56
  • err...could you tell me how? lol – display name Apr 29 '17 at 23:59
  • Explore and learn. – Mark Adler Apr 30 '17 at 00:00
  • I only see Heliocentric coordinates, no options for rectangular formats – display name Apr 30 '17 at 00:42
  • Give us an example of the coordinates you used and the answer you came up with. – Organic Marble Apr 30 '17 at 01:44
  • Using r as .3207197 AU, longitude as 118 degress and latitude as 6 degrees: -22401375658.9 -2354479457.53 42362928617.4 for x y z – display name Apr 30 '17 at 01:48
  • Part of exploring is to click on all the Change links, and seeing what all of the options are. – Mark Adler Apr 30 '17 at 05:12
  • You should edit your question to include this information. Adding some units to the answer would be helpful. Also information about the reference frames you are using. The more information you provide, the more likely it is that someone will provide an answer. Making people guess at what you mean makes it unlikely. – Organic Marble Apr 30 '17 at 05:17
  • You could look at other questions here that have the jpl-horizons tag: https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/jpl-horizons and see if those give you some insight. See how far you can get by trying things yourself, and reading those questions and answers. The (or at least a) goal in stackexchange is to build a set of searchable questions and answers. Look around, and take the tour while you're at it. – uhoh May 01 '17 at 14:39

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At the bottom of your linked web page is the sentence:

If you need really accurate data for a planet or asteroid, try the JPL HORIZONS System. (These guys were navigating spacecraft through the solar system when I was still playing with GI Joe!)

...which is indeed an excellent answer to your question!

A step-by-step example of how to obtain "rectangular coordinates of the solar system planets" using Horizons can be found in this answer.

uhoh
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I could not find a good live imagery of planetary positions. Also try this question in Astronomy SE.

http://www.astrosoftware.com/cpnew/software/sirius/features/skymap.html works well.

The examples in the question and the comments are valid ways to track the planets. I do see plausibility in converting the coordinates into a visual grid.

Muze
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