PyMeeus 0.2.4

Python implementation of Jean Meeus astronomical routines

Library of astronomical algorithms in Python.

PyMeeus is a Python implementation of the astronomical algorithms described in the classical book “Astronomical Algorithms, 2nd Edition, Willmann-Bell Inc. (1998)” by Jean Meeus.

There are great astronomical libraries out there. For instance, if you’re looking for high precision and speed you should take a look at libnova. For a set of python modules aimed at professional astronomers, you should look at Astropy. On the other hand, the advantages of PyMeeus are its simplicity, ease of use, ease of reading, ease of installation (it has the minimum amount of dependencies) and abundant documentation.

Installation

The easiest way of installing PyMeeus is using pip:

pip install pymeeus

Or, for a per-user installation:

pip install --user pymeeus

Meta

Author: Dagoberto Salazar

Distributed under the GNU Lesser General Public License v3 (LGPLv3). See LICENSE.txt and COPYING.LESSER for more information.

Documentation: https://pymeeus.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

GitHub: https://github.com/architest/pymeeus

If you have Sphinx installed, you can generate your own, latest documentation going to directory ‘docs’ and issuing:

make html

Then the HTML pages can be found in ‘build/html’.

Contributing

The preferred method to contribute is through forking and pull requests:

1. Fork it (https://github.com/architest/pymeeus/fork)

2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/fooBar)

3. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some fooBar')

4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/fooBar)

5. Create a new Pull Request

Please bear in mind that PyMeeus follows the PEP8 style guide for Python code (PEP8). We suggest you install and use a linter like Flake8 before contributing.

Additionally, PyMeeus makes heavy use of automatic tests. As a general rule, every function or method added must have a corresponding test in the proper place in tests directory.

Finally, documentation is also a big thing here. Add proper and abundant documentation to your new code. This also includes in-line comments!!!.

What’s new

• 0.2.4

  • Minor bug fixing, added methods ‘ephemeris_physical_observations()’ and ‘beginning_synodic_rotation()’, and added classes ‘Mercury’ and ‘Mars’

• 0.2.3

  • Added the complete list of VSOP87 parameters to Venus, method to compute dates of equinoxes and solstices, and the Equation of Time

• 0.2.2

  • Added heliocentric position method for J2000.0 (Earth) and rectangular coordinates methods (Sun)

• 0.2.1

  • Added Venus module and VSOP87-based positioning methods

• 0.2.0

  • Added Sun module

• 0.1.10

  • Added functions to compute if three objects are in a straight line, and the smallest diameter of a circle containing them.

• 0.1.9

  • Added functions to compute relative position angles and conjunctions

• 0.1.8

  • Added functions to compute angular separation to Coordinates module

• 0.1.7

  • Added functions to compute atmospheric refraction to Coordinates module

• 0.1.6

  • Added function ‘times_rise_transit_set()’ to Coordinates module

• 0.1.5

  • Added functions for parallactic angle, ecliptic points in the horizon, angle between north celestial pole and north pole of the ecliptic, and diurnal path vs. the horizon at time of rising or setting

• 0.1.4

  • Added several conversion functions to Coordinates module

• 0.1.3

  • Added Coordinates module

• 0.1.2

  • Added precession and proper motion methods, and changed handling of Epoch class

• 0.1.1

  • Added methods related to nutation corrections

• 0.1.0

  • Earth class added

• 0.0.9

  • Significant documentation improvements

• 0.0.8

  • Epoch class finished

• 0.0.7

  • Epoch class added

• 0.0.6

  • CurveFitting class added

• 0.0.5

  • Interpolation class added

• 0.0.4

  • Angle class finished

• 0.0.3

  • Removed unnecessary dependencies

• 0.0.2

  • Documentation improvements

• 0.0.1

  • Initial commit