In order to determine the unknown orbit of a body, some observations of its motion with time are required. In early modern astronomy, the only available observational data for celestial objects were the right ascension and declination, obtained by observing the body as it moved in its observation arc, relative to the fixed stars, using an optical telescope. This corresponds to knowing the object's relative direction in space, measured from the observer, but without knowledge of the distance of the object, i.e. the resultant measurement contains only direction information, like a unit vector.