astro is a C++ astronomical library. Functionality includes:

• Calculating the following for all the majory planetary bodies at any given UTC date:
  • Right ascension;
  • Declination;
  • Distance from the earth;
  • Heliocentric coordinates in the orbital plane;
  • Heliocentric coordinates in the J2000 ecliptic plane;
  • Geocentric ecliptic coordinates;
  • Geocentric equatorial coordinates; and
  • Zodiac coordinates of the form 15GE23.
• Solving Kepler's equation;
• Converting degrees to hour/minute/second and degree/minute/second formats;
• Finding the Julian date for any given UTC date; and
• Converting rectangular to spherical coordinates.

astro is written and maintained by Paul Griffiths.

Details of the latest version can be found on the GitHub project page at https://github.com/paulgriffiths/astro.

Up-to-date documentation can be found at https://github.com/paulgriffiths/astro/wiki.

astro is written in C++. It requires the utctime library, which can be found at https://github.com/paulgriffiths/utctime.

Download the source code and edit the file Makefile to modify the following variables:

• LIB_INSTALL_PATH
• INC_INSTALL_PATH

with the directories to which to install the library and the header files, and the variables:

• UTC_INC_PATH
• UTC_LIB_PATH

with the directories in which the UTCTime library and headers are installed.

From the command line, run make and then make install to deploy the library and header files. Run make sample to build an example program with the installed library. #include <paulgrif/astro.h> to use the library.

Please see the file called LICENSE.

• If you have a concrete bug report for astro please go to the GitHub issue tracker at https://github.com/paulgriffiths/astro/issues.