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brandon-rhodes / python-jplephem

Python version of NASA DE4xx ephemerides, the basis for the Astronomical Alamanac
MIT License
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Can this read little-endian binary JPL files? #31

Closed jamadagni closed 5 years ago

jamadagni commented 5 years ago

Hello. I already have the little-endian binary JPL files downloaded from ftp://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/pub/eph/planets/Linux/de431/. But the code/doc seems only to talk about BSP files.

Does this mean I have to download the files from under ftp://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/pub/eph/planets/bsp/?

Since the files aren't small I'm wary of downloading and using up my bandwidth unnecessarily.

Further some of those files have t s etc appended to the DE version number and I'm not sure what to use…

Please help! Thank you!

brandon-rhodes commented 5 years ago

I would suggest starting with a very small pair of files first if bandwidth costs are an issue, and seeing if a small ephemeris is supported before trying a big one. I'm not familiar with the ".431" file extension (I guess it's just the ephemeris number?) so I don't know anything about the format of that particular file. I myself have only used the library with bsp files, since those are the kind currently used by tools like SPICE. My guess is that you'll need a bsp file.

brandon-rhodes commented 5 years ago

I'm going to close this for now, but if you have any further questions, please feel free to re-open it and ask them!