# Displaying Stonyhurst grid labels on a full-disk map

**URL:** <https://community.openastronomy.org/t/displaying-stonyhurst-grid-labels-on-a-full-disk-map/1299>\
**Category:** SunPy\
**Tags:** sunpy, question\
**Created:** [September 29, 2025, 9:44pm UTC](https://community.openastronomy.org/t/displaying-stonyhurst-grid-labels-on-a-full-disk-map/1299 "2025-09-29T21:44:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![maitra-dipankar](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex005/user_avatar/community.openastronomy.org/maitra-dipankar/32/669_2.png) [@maitra-dipankar](https://community.openastronomy.org/u/maitra-dipankar)\
**Post date:** [September 29, 2025, 9:44pm UTC](https://community.openastronomy.org/t/displaying-stonyhurst-grid-labels-on-a-full-disk-map/1299/1 "2025-09-29T21:44:12Z")

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Hello! [First time posting, so please let me know if I’m doing something wrong]

I have a white-light, full-disk images of the Sun taken using smart telescopes or DSLRs that have already been rotated so that their orientations match with contemporaneous SDO/HMI images. Using the tutorials like: [Drawing heliographic longitude and latitude lines — sunpy 7.0.2 documentation](https://docs.sunpy.org/en/stable/generated/gallery/plotting/lat_lon_lines.html) I am able to overlay the Stonyhurst grid on my maps, but for E/PO (education and public outreach) purposes it would be great if the grid lines could be labeled. I have noticed that in sunpy 7.0.2 documentation \> gallery \> plotting \> grid\_plotting.html the grid labels show up, but in that case a small portion of the solar disk is being displayed. Do you have any ‘minimum working example‘ showing how grid labels can be displayed in a full-disk image? Roughly speaking, something along the lines of this image [https://cdn.britannica.com/63/2063-050-89E52B49.jpg](https://cdn.britannica.com/63/2063-050-89E52B49.jpg) but just showing the grid labels.

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**Author:** ![nabobalis](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex005/user_avatar/community.openastronomy.org/nabobalis/32/14_2.png) [@nabobalis](https://community.openastronomy.org/u/nabobalis)\
**Post date:** [September 29, 2025, 9:51pm UTC](https://community.openastronomy.org/t/displaying-stonyhurst-grid-labels-on-a-full-disk-map/1299/2 "2025-09-29T21:51:32Z")

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The only example I can think that has labels like that but isn’t really in the same vein is the first plot of this example: [Reprojecting a Helioprojective Map to Helioprojective Radial — sunpy 7.0.2 documentation](https://docs.sunpy.org/en/stable/generated/gallery/map_transformations/reprojection_helioprojective_radial.html#sphx-glr-generated-gallery-map-transformations-reprojection-helioprojective-radial-py)

This feature comes from the following pull request to astropy: [Add a tickable gridline to a WCSAxes plot by ayshih · Pull Request #13829 · astropy/astropy · GitHub](https://github.com/astropy/astropy/pull/13829) which has more examples of what is possible. There is [Overlaying coordinate systems — Astropy v7.1.0](https://docs.astropy.org/en/stable/visualization/wcsaxes/overlaying_coordinate_systems.html#interior-ticks-and-tick-labels) which has a small example of how to add inner tick labels.

@ayshih was the one who wrote it and might be able to provide a working example for you.

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**Author:** ![maitra-dipankar](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex005/user_avatar/community.openastronomy.org/maitra-dipankar/32/669_2.png) [@maitra-dipankar](https://community.openastronomy.org/u/maitra-dipankar)\
**Post date:** [September 30, 2025, 12:46am UTC](https://community.openastronomy.org/t/displaying-stonyhurst-grid-labels-on-a-full-disk-map/1299/3 "2025-09-30T00:46:22Z")

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Thanks for the pointers @nabobalis ! I’ll try the PR by @ayshih which looks perfect! Meanwhile it might be great if @ayshih could provide a working example. I think this is something quite a few people will find useful, and will appreciate.