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Tuesday, January 10, 2023

Python 3.7.9 : simple zodiac with pyephem and ephem.

I don't know how to calculate a zodiac exactly, from what I understand the planets and the moon must overlap. so I tested a script that calculates the dates between the planets and the moon when they appear within one degree of each other and displays them in an array with rows and columns created from these planets and the moon. The intersections on the diagonal should be none because there's obviously no way to overlap the same object, and they only occur when there's this less than one degree rule.
If you think it is wrong then you can try to fix it.
You can install pyephem and ephem with pip tool, I used both python packages:
pip install pyephem --user
Requirement already satisfied: pyephem in 
... site-packages (9.99)
Requirement already satisfied: ephem in 
...
site-packages (from pyephem) (4.1.4)
This is the source script.
import ephem

# create a list with planets objects from ephem
planets = [ephem.Mercury(), ephem.Venus(), ephem.Mars(), ephem.Jupiter(), ephem.Saturn(), ephem.Uranus(), ephem.Neptune(), ephem.Moon()]

start_date = ephem.Date("2023/01/01")
end_date = ephem.Date("2023/12/31")
date = start_date

# create matrix to store planet names and conjunction dates
matrix = [[None for _ in range(len(planets) + 1)] for _ in range(len(planets))]

# create list to store planet names
planet_names = [planet.name for planet in planets]
# list all planets names as first row in matrix
matrix.insert(0, [""] + planet_names)

while date < end_date:
    for i, planet1 in enumerate(planets):
        for j, planet2 in enumerate(planets):
            if i < j:
                planet1.compute(date)
                planet2.compute(date)
                sep = ephem.separation(planet1, planet2) #  calculate the angular distance
                # compare the separation, if less than 0.01 degree then it's a conjunction
                if sep < 1.0:
                    date_formatted = date.datetime().strftime("%d %B %Y")
                    matrix[i+1][j+1] = date_formatted
                    break
    date = ephem.Date(date + 1)
# print a matrix with date is separation from 1 degree between planets on rows and column
for row in matrix:
    print(row)
This is the result:
['', 'Mercury', 'Venus', 'Mars', 'Jupiter', 'Saturn', 'Uranus', 'Neptune', 'Moon']
[None, None, '30 December 2023', '14 December 2023', '20 June 2023', None, None, None, None]
[None, None, None, '30 December 2023', '15 March 2023', '06 January 2023', None, None, '12 October 2023']
[None, None, None, None, None, None, '24 April 2023', None, '16 December 2023']
[None, None, None, None, None, '05 June 2023', '30 December 2023', None, None]
[None, None, None, None, None, None, None, '30 December 2023', None]
[None, None, None, None, None, None, None, '30 December 2023', None]
[None, None, None, None, None, None, None, None, '23 December 2023']
[None, None, None, None, None, None, None, None, None]