CALLHORIZONS 0.9.7

CALLHORIZONS is a Python 2.7 interface to access JPL HORIZONS ephemerides and orbital elements of Solar System bodies.

Overview

This module provides a convenient python interface to the JPL HORIZONS system by directly accessing and parsing the http website. Ephemerides can be obtained through get_ephemerides, orbital elements through get_elements. Function export2pyephem provides a convenient interface to the PyEphem module that allows for ephemerides calculations on your machine.

Installation

The easiest way is to install the module using pip:

pip install callhorizons

For other ways, see the documentation.

Documentation

The CALLHORIZONS documentation is available at http://mommermi.github.io/callhorizons/readme.html

Examples

• print RA and DEC of asteroid 433 Eros from Mauna Kea for two discrete dates:

  import callhorizons
  eros = callhorizons.query('Eros')
  eros.set_discreteepochs([2457446.177083, 2457446.182343])
  eros.get_ephemerides(568)
  print eros['RA'], eros['DEC']
  

For more examples, see the documentation.

License

This code is published under the MIT License. Feel free to use this code and modify it to your own needs. Please note that the code is provided as is, without any warranty (see LICENSE file for details).

Copyright (c) 2016 Michael Mommert

Contact

Feel free to contact me with your suggestions and comments!

michael.mommert (at) nau.edu, latest version: v0.9, 2016-02-27

Changelog

• 2016-01-13: implemented function export2pyephem that exports orbital elements into a PyEphem object (requires PyEphem: http://rhodesmill.org/pyephem/)
• 2016-02-27: changed structure into class structure, created pip installer