PyEphem provides the Python language with routines for computing the location of celestial objects like the sun, moon, and planets, as well as for any asteroids, comets, and earth satellites for which the caller can provide orbital elements. Rise, set, and transit times can be computed for any object, and basic coordinate computations are also supported.
Questions tagged [pyephem]
272 questions
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votes
2 answers
PyEphem Angle Clarification
I'd just like to make sure I understand what PyEphem is doing with angles.
Let's say I have an observer at 30° S, 60° W looking at the sky today at noon.
So I do:
obs = ephem.Observer()
obs.lat, obs.lon = '-30', '-60'
obs.date = '2012/6/22…

user1475412
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Is pyEphem 'sublat' and 'sublong' given in Geocentric or Geodetic?
The documentation says that if pyEpehm is given a TLE and a time it will return the following. However, I'm having no luck converting the returned 'sublat' and 'sublon' to ECEF XYZ and back to LLA coordinates to verify. When I convert back the…

PhilBot
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3
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2 answers
Calculation star position in the sky, PyEphem
I have difficulties with finding current coordinates (RA, DEC) for star in sky.
In net I have found only this one tutorial, how to use ephem library: http://asimpleweblog.wordpress.com/2010/07/04/astrometry-in-python-with-pyephem/
As I understood I…

ekitru
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3
votes
3 answers
pyephem: can't calculate sunrise/set for polar regions
i'm trying to calculate sunrises and sunsets using pyephem, but the algorithm never seems to converge for polar regions?
observe the sample code below. it iterates through an entire year in 10-minute increments asking for the next sunrise and…

mrgriscom
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3
votes
1 answer
calculate sunrise and sunset times from a datetime index using ephem in Python
I have a daily time series with DateTime index. I want to calculate the sunrise and sunset times for each day in the DataFrame. The result will be presented in columns rise and set. Below is my script using pyephem:
import ephem
import…

k.ko3n
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3
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1 answer
How can I track the Tesla Roadster in Pyephem?
As you may be aware, SpaceX launched a Tesla Roadster into space, and it is now orbiting the sun.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk%27s_Tesla_Roadster
How can I track this in Pyephem? You can find some orbital elements on JPL's Horizons site…

J Murphy
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3
votes
1 answer
PyEphem: How do I calculate the lowest altitude of the sun (largest angle the sun will reach below the horizon)?
Depending on the seasons, it looks like the sun will never go lower than a certain angle with respect to the horizon at some areas.
Is there a way in PyEphem to calculate the lowest possible angle at specific times and locations, so I can avoid an…

not_this_website
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votes
0 answers
Problems installing Pyephem on Synology DSM
I'm trying to install Pyephem onto my Synology Box, which is running DSM6, and have run into some problems concerning wheel. I have installed pip etc so have:
Installing collected packages: pip, six, pyparsing, packaging, appdirs, setuptools,…

Byte Insight
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How to calculate a location in satellite image with PyEphem?
I have the ephemeris for an Earth observing satellite from a TLE, so I can get the location of the satellite (lat/lon). The documentation has a nice example for the ISS, showing how that is done.
However, what I am actually after is the location of…

Rudi Gens
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3
votes
1 answer
How to get earth-inertial or earth-centered coordinates of objects from PyEphem?
I would like to get coordinates of objects in various XYZ coordinates, not where they appear in the sky. I'm interested in:
ECE: "Earth Centered
Inertial"
(not rotation with the earth)
ECEF: "Earth Centered
Earth-Fixed" (not inertial, also
called…

uhoh
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3
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1 answer
PyEphem under the hood - how does it calculate position of planets?
In space SE it was suggested I use PyEphem to calculate orbits from two-line elements. Now I'm curious how it calculates "build-in" solar system objects like the planets and their satellites. Does it use one of the standard JPL ephemerides (also…

uhoh
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3
votes
1 answer
PyEphem: how to calculate position of the Moon nodes?
Is there a way to get the longitude of the Moon's ascending/descending nodes (North/South nodes) in pyEphem?
Thanks

bokr
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3
votes
1 answer
Local time using UTC, coordinates (PyEphem not working)
I have a list of coordinates and UTC time but frustratingly pyephem's localtime function doesn't work--it displays the computer's local time. I want to filter out stations that are in night time (not in between the hours of 8 am and 4 pm). Is there…

pythanaconda
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3
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How to interpret PyEphem lat/long
Tried using PyEphem sample codes below:
import ephem
import datetime
import math
name = "SPOT 6";
line1 = "1 38755U 12047A 15104.74620640 .00000406 00000-0 96954-4 0 9999";
line2 = "2 38755 98.1581 172.5167 0001084 90.6537 269.4779…

tanlccc
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How do I calculate the path of total eclipse?
After observing the total eclipse on 20th March, 2015, I got to thinking about calculating the path of total eclipse using pyephem.
My general approach is to calculate the time and location of greatest eclipse, then work backward and forward from…

MerseyViking
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