skyfielders/astronomy-notebooks

iPython Notebooks showing off NumPy, matplotlib, and our universe

astronomy-notebooks

iPython Notebooks showing off NumPy, matplotlib, and our universe

Getting Started

The short version: make sure you have all of the appropriate dependencies installed and then run the appropriate setup script for your platform.

Linux

1. Install/build the required dependencies. Most dependencies other than Python and virtualenv are automatically installed via the setup script.
2. Clone or fork this repo.
3. Run setup.sh to create a new virtualenv, install any missing dependencies, and download required data sets.

Well tested instructions for Xubuntu 12.10 are in INSTALL-xubuntu-12.10.

Windows

1. Install the required dependencies. See below for details.
2. Clone or fork this repo.
3. Run setup.bat to create a new virtualenv, install any missing dependencies, and download required data sets.

Windows Dependencies (the simple way)

The easiest way to get all of the dependencies in Windows is to use a special Python distribution meant for scientific computing. Pick one of the following options:

• Install Anaconda.
• Or, install Python(x,y). You can reduce the disk space required by only selecting the dependencies listed below (and any components required by those dependencies). Mayavi is included as part of the 'ETS' component. If you already have Python 2.7 installed, Python(x,y) may clobber your existing installation.
• Or, install EPD. The free version of EPD does not include Mayavi, but it does contain the tools required to build it from source. If you don't want 3D visualizations, you don't need Mayavi.

Windows Dependencies (the harder way)

1. Install Python 2.7 and virtualenv. You may also want to install setuptools or distribute.
2. Download and install binaries for wxPython, iPython, numpy, scipy, matplotlib.
3. Use pip to install tornado, pyzmq, jinja2, sympy, pyephem, jplephem, de405, sgp4.
4. (optional) If you're using regular Python, rather than EPD, you'll need to install or build VTK. Python(x,y) bundles an installer which is listed on the standard plugins page. If you want to try building VTK from source, you'll also need CMake, a compiler such as MinGW or Visual Studio, and a very large bottle of whiskey.
5. Build Mayavi from source. You could also try installing the ETS package from the Python(x,y) standard plugins.

Dependencies

Python

• Python (obviously), virtualenv

iPython

• ipython, tornado, pyzmq, jinja2
• sympy (only required for the 'iPython Features' notebook)

Visualization tools

• numpy, scipy, matplotlib
• VTK (must be compiled from source to include python support)
• mayavi (may need to be compiled from source?)
• wxPython

Astronomical software

• pyephem, jplephem, de405, sgp4, python-skyfield
• Large data sets required by these packages are downloaded automatically by the setup script

for 'An-Introduction--Pandas' notebook

• pandas

astronomy-notebooks's Issues

setup.bat probably needs to be updated.

setup.bat probably needs to be updated considering how much setup.sh was changed in https://github.com/james-prior/astronomy-notebooks/tree/jep-dev.

Black Inline Images for Interactive-3D-* Notebooks

This makes a separate issue out of what was mentioned elsewhere.

I am not able to rebuild the inline image output for both Interactive-3D-Earth-Satellites.ipynb and Interactive-3D-Solar-System.ipynb. For those two notebooks, all the inline images turn out as black rectangles. I do not have this problem with the other notebooks, suggesting some interaction with mayavi/vtk stuff. I am using Xubuntu 12.10 i386 in a virtual machine. The following web pages illustrate the issue.

http://nbviewer.ipython.org/github/james-prior/astronomy-notebooks/blob/jep-black-inline-images-issue/Interactive-3D-Earth-Satellites.ipynb
http://nbviewer.ipython.org/github/james-prior/astronomy-notebooks/blob/jep-black-inline-images-issue/Interactive-3D-Solar-System.ipynb

The notebooks themselves are in the jep-black-inline-images-issue branch.

Update ipynb files

@erinspace @chrisgilmerproj

• Asteroids.ipynb
• Axis-Wobble.ipynb
• Hertzsprung-Russell.ipynb
• Interactive-3D-Earth-Satellites.ipynb
• Interactive-3D-Solar-System.ipynb
• Interactive-Sky.ipynb
• Javascript-integration.ipynb
• Stars.ipynb
• Stellar-Color-Index.ipynb
• Utils-HORIZONS-data.ipynb

Deprecations

deprecations

Do not merge the jep-deprecations branch.

The jep-deprecations branch is a glorified bug report to show the 
deprecations. The deprecations were likely provoked by new versions of
packages since I did a fresh installation from scratch.

Look at the differences from 33cb278 to jep-deprecations in 
https://github.com/james-prior/astronomy-notebooks/

5c1076a 2014-01-15 10:23:19 -0500 An-Introduction--Notebook-Features.ipynb: 

    using %load_ext sympy.interactive.ipythonprinting has been deprecated

508f280 2014-01-15 10:47:05 -0500 Interactive-3D-Earth-Satellites.ipynb: 

    WARNING:traits.has_traits:DEPRECATED: traits.has_traits.wrapped_class, 
    'the 'implements' class advisor has been deprecated. Use the 'provides'
    class decorator.

16e1555 2014-01-14 22:32:27 -0500 Interactive-3D-Solar-System.ipynb: 

    WARNING:traits.has_traits:DEPRECATED: traits.has_traits.wrapped_class, 
    'the 'implements' class advisor has been deprecated. Use the 'provides'
    class decorator.

    The offending cell also has a bug, so it is in the jep-bugs branch.

License information for repo

These Jupyter notebooks are awesome! I'd love to use them to learn more about astronomy plotting in Python. Do you have a license (MIT, GNU etc) for people who'd like to use / reference your code?

Small Size of Earth

The earth becomes small in the mayavi window when cell 12 of Interactive-3D-Earth-Satellites.ipynb runs. Is this a feature to demonstrate the zooming capabilities of mayavi, or is this a bug?

ImportError in Interactive-3D-Solar-System.ipynb for something from skyfield

The second cell in Interactive-3D-Solar-System.ipynb crashes trying to import something from skyfield.

The Interactive-3D-Solar-System.ipynb file in the jep-bugs branch has the output that shows the crash.

https://github.com/james-prior/astronomy-notebooks/raw/jep-bugs/Interactive-3D-Solar-System.ipynb

stalks seem to not match satellites

The stalks created by the last cell of Interactive-3D-Earth-Satellites.ipynb seem to not match the satellites. Look at the screenshots.