Hi @eteq ,

I was trying to work on this issue. But in the example case,

>>> f = ICRS(1*u.deg, 2*u.deg,
          pm_dec=1*u.mas/u.yr, pm_ra_cosdec=2*u.mas/u.yr, radial_velocity=10*u.km/u.s)
>>> f.represent_as('cartesian', in_frame_units=True)

The example has no distance in it, but rather has a radial_velocity. I didn't understand what exactly it means. Also, If I put some distance in the frame, it works perfectly!

Can you please make me understand the issue, I am getting confused.

@shreyasbapat Could you please try to see if https://github.com/astropy/astropy/pull/9064 fixes this issue? (Edit: it doesn't)

9086 reminded me of this issue. For the two cases:

No distance but with RV

>>> f = ICRS(1*u.deg, 2*u.deg,
          pm_dec=1*u.mas/u.yr, pm_ra_cosdec=2*u.mas/u.yr, radial_velocity=10*u.km/u.s)
>>> f.represent_as('cartesian', in_frame_units=True)
UnitConversionError: 'mas / (rad yr)' (frequency) and 'km / s' (speed) are not convertible

I think this one is unsolvable: without a distance, one cannot convert a proper motion to a spatial velocity, or a spatial velocity to an agular one. So, I think for this case, we simply need to make sure the error message is clearer (triggered by having an RV but no distance).

RV introduced by coordinate transformation

>>> f = ICRS(1*u.deg, 2*u.deg, 
                pm_dec=1*u.mas/u.yr, pm_ra_cosdec=2*u.mas/u.yr)
>>> g = f.transform_to(GCRS)
>>> repr(g)
# error
>>> g.data
<CartesianRepresentation (x, y, z) [dimensionless]
    (0.99923901, 0.01742676, 0.03489572)
 (has differentials w.r.t.: 's')>
g.data.differentials
<CartesianDifferential (d_x, d_y, d_z) in 1 / s
    (6.07736084e-13, -1.85772092e-11, -8.12625661e-12)>

This is quite a bit more subtle. Without proper motion, g is UnitSpherical, which makes sense, and here it should be too, so there is something wrong with the transformation. For completeness, representing it on the unit sphere does work:

g.represent_as('unitspherical')                                                               
Out[24]: 
<UnitSphericalRepresentation (lon, lat) in rad
    (0.01743826, 0.0349028)
 (has differentials w.r.t.: 's')>

In [25]: g.represent_as('unitspherical').differentials['s']                                            
Out[25]: 
<UnitSphericalDifferential (d_lon, d_lat) in rad / s
    (-1.85963079e-11, -8.13120751e-12)>

But even so, g.cartesian should work too - here, the problem is that frames decide for the user what units are sensible, insisting that a cartesian velocity is in km/s (of course, this goes back to my long-standing complaint that coordinate units in the representation are decided for me...): https://github.com/astropy/astropy/blob/c3dc7b38303b3615945aa36a11ebf7bd31d5cc0a/astropy/coordinates/baseframe.py#L1744-L1753

The units themselves are gotten from:

g.representation_info
{astropy.coordinates.representation.CartesianRepresentation: {'names': ['x',
   'y',
   'z'],
  'units': [None, None, None]},
 astropy.coordinates.representation.UnitSphericalRepresentation: {'names': ('ra',
   'dec'),
  'units': (Unit("deg"), Unit("deg"))},
 astropy.coordinates.representation.RadialRepresentation: {'names': ['distance'],
  'units': [None]},
 astropy.coordinates.representation.SphericalRepresentation: {'names': ('ra',
   'dec',
   'distance'),
  'units': (Unit("deg"), Unit("deg"), None)},
 astropy.coordinates.representation.PhysicsSphericalRepresentation: {'names': ['phi',
   'theta',
   'r'],
  'units': [Unit("deg"), Unit("deg"), None]},
 astropy.coordinates.representation.CylindricalRepresentation: {'names': ['rho',
   'phi',
   'z'],
  'units': [None, Unit("deg"), None]},
 astropy.coordinates.representation.CartesianDifferential: {'names': ('v_x',
   'v_y',
   'v_z'),
  'units': (Unit("km / s"), Unit("km / s"), Unit("km / s"))},
 astropy.coordinates.representation.UnitSphericalDifferential: {'names': ('pm_ra',
   'pm_dec'),
  'units': (Unit("mas / yr"), Unit("mas / yr"))},
 astropy.coordinates.representation.SphericalDifferential: {'names': ('pm_ra',
   'pm_dec',
   'radial_velocity'),
  'units': (Unit("mas / yr"), Unit("mas / yr"), Unit("km / s"))},
 astropy.coordinates.representation.UnitSphericalCosLatDifferential: {'names': ('pm_ra_cosdec',
   'pm_dec'),
  'units': (Unit("mas / yr"), Unit("mas / yr"))},
 astropy.coordinates.representation.SphericalCosLatDifferential: {'names': ('pm_ra_cosdec',
   'pm_dec',
   'radial_velocity'),
  'units': (Unit("mas / yr"), Unit("mas / yr"), Unit("km / s"))},
 astropy.coordinates.representation.RadialDifferential: {'names': ['d_distance'],
  'units': [None]},
 astropy.coordinates.representation.PhysicsSphericalDifferential: {'names': ['d_phi',
   'd_theta',
   'd_r'],
  'units': [None, None, None]},
 astropy.coordinates.representation.CylindricalDifferential: {'names': ['d_rho',
   'd_phi',
   'd_z'],
  'units': [None, None, None]}}

One sees here that CartesianDifferential is the only one that is wrong, which is because it has preferred units set at all.

Which probably means that the fix in #9086 is OK with a small modification: one should try to go to the requested units but not care if that fails.