Arcseconds (″) to Degrees (°) Conversion

Arcseconds

The arcsecond (″, Unicode U+2033) is a unit of angle equal to exactly 1/3,600 of a degree, or 1/60 of an arcminute (approximately 4.848 × 10⁻⁶ radians). It is the standard unit of angular resolution in astronomy: the Hubble Space Telescope achieves a resolution of approximately 0.05 arcseconds; the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, has a parallax of 0.769 arcseconds — the basis for measuring its distance. In geodesy, GPS coordinates are routinely recorded to sub-arcsecond precision, corresponding to positional accuracy of approximately 30 metres on Earth's surface.

Degrees

The degree (°) is a unit of angular measurement equal to 1/360 of a full rotation, a convention inherited from ancient Babylonian astronomy which used a base-60 numeral system and approximated the year as 360 days — one degree for each day of apparent solar travel. The degree is subdivided into 60 arcminutes (′), each of which divides into 60 arcseconds (″), following the same sexagesimal tradition. It is the most widely used angle unit in everyday life, navigation, geography, and engineering outside of advanced mathematics.

Convert Arcseconds (″) to other units of Angle