API Reference — Kepler Orbits¶

Skyfield includes some contributed code that can compute predicted positions for minor planets and comets given simple Kepler orbital elements. The computations are not yet very fast, and can’t yet compute multiple body positions efficiently using NumPy array operations—if you ask for ten comet positions, then Skyfield has to run an internal loop computing each of the ten positions separately.

The library is not yet fully documented; see Kepler Orbits for an introduction to the features it already supports.

Here, we have only yet documented the routines for loading data, as they are the most stable.

skyfield.data.mpc.load_mpcorb_dataframe(fobj)¶

Parse a Minor Planet Center orbits file into a Pandas dataframe.

See Kepler Orbits. The MPCORB file format is documented at: https://minorplanetcenter.net/iau/info/MPOrbitFormat.html

skyfield.data.mpc.load_comets_dataframe(fobj)¶

Parse a Minor Planet Center comets file into a Pandas dataframe.

This imports only the fields essential for computing comet orbits. See load_comets_dataframe_slow() for a slower routine that includes every comet data field.

See Kepler Orbits. The comet file format is documented at: https://www.minorplanetcenter.net/iau/info/CometOrbitFormat.html

skyfield.data.mpc.load_comets_dataframe_slow(fobj)¶

Parse a Minor Planet Center comets file into a Pandas dataframe.

This routine reads in every single field from the comets data file. See load_comets_dataframe() for a faster routine that omits some of the more expensive comet fields.

See Kepler Orbits. The comet file format is documented at: https://www.minorplanetcenter.net/iau/info/CometOrbitFormat.html