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These are some simple tools for digital astrophotography.

This script generates a list ofRight Ascension (RA) andDeclination (Dec) coordinates, over time, for capturing multiple images of natural satellite (e.g., moons like Io and Europa). This allows you to take the photos, stack the images, and end up with a great shot, without worrying about what position a moon is in its orbitaround its planet at any given time, relative to your position on Earth. It should also work for many other orbital bodies, as the underlying data is pulled from JPL's Horizons project.

• Python 3.x
• astropy library
• astroquery library

Install the required libraries usingpip:

pip install astropy astroquery

The script queries theJPL Horizons system to compute theRA/Dec coordinates of a target natural satellite (such as Ceres) at specified epochs. You provide the name of the target satellite, your observation location (longitude, latitude, and elevation), and the time intervals for the observation list.

Run the script with the following syntax:

python obs-list.py<object_name><longitude><latitude><elevation>

python obs-list.py Ceres -74.0466891 40.6892534 0.093

This will output the RA/Dec coordinates forCeres at 60-second intervals, starting from the current time, as observed from the specified location (Longitude: -74.0466891, Latitude: 40.6892534, Elevation: 0.093 km).

Epoch: 2024-Dec-24 19:24:00.889 RA: 310.258610° Dec: -25.552470°Epoch: 2024-Dec-24 19:25:00.889 RA: 310.258890° Dec: -25.552400°Epoch: 2024-Dec-24 19:26:00.889 RA: 310.259160° Dec: -25.552330°Epoch: 2024-Dec-24 19:27:00.889 RA: 310.259430° Dec: -25.552270°Epoch: 2024-Dec-24 19:28:00.889 RA: 310.259700° Dec: -25.552200°Epoch: 2024-Dec-24 19:29:00.889 RA: 310.259970° Dec: -25.552140°Epoch: 2024-Dec-24 19:30:00.889 RA: 310.260250° Dec: -25.552070°Epoch: 2024-Dec-24 19:31:00.889 RA: 310.260520° Dec: -25.552000°Epoch: 2024-Dec-24 19:32:00.889 RA: 310.260790° Dec: -25.551940°Epoch: 2024-Dec-24 19:33:00.889 RA: 310.261060° Dec: -25.551870°

• The script takes in an object name (e.g., Ceres), an observer's location (longitude, latitude, elevation), and generates a series of epochs (timestamps).
• Theastroquery package is used to query theJPL Horizons system for the RA/Dec coordinates of the specified object at each epoch.
• The RA/Dec values are printed out at each epoch, which can be used for pointing a telescope to capture images for stacking.

• The epochs are generated starting from the current time and are spaced 60 seconds apart (you can adjust the interval and number of steps if needed).
• The RA/Dec values are provided in degrees, formatted to six decimal places for precision.

This project is licensed under the GNU Affero GPL v3 License (only)