Starplot - New! Translations, comets, ...
Starplot v0.17.0 🎉
A new version, v0.17.0, of Starplot is now available on PyPI and includes:
🌐 Translations for French and Chinese
Introduces localization with two language translations for labels: French and Chinese. Big thanks to @hongming and @jeau 👏
☄️ Comets & Satellites
Adds models for comets and satellites and supports data formats from MPC and CelesTrak. Includes function for easily generating trajectories.
🔭 Improved Optic Field of View Function
Consolidates the scope/binoculars field of view function into a generic optic FOV function (which means it also supports cameras now).
📋 Minor Changes
- Adds font name and weight style properties to legend labels
- Adds callable for constellation labels
- Deprecates the
labelsparameter on star/DSO/constellation plotting functions (this was a common point of confusion) - Defines a default
label_fnfor stars/DSOs/constellations. By default, DSOs will now be labeled with their Messier number ("M13"), NGC number ("1976"), or IC number ("IC1309").
✨ Showcase
The plot above demonstrates the new Satellite model in Starplot and shows the International Space Station (ISS) when it transits the Moon on December 8, 2025 at 8:03am PT as seen from lat/lon 33.0225028, -116.507025 (near Lake Cuyamaca in California, USA). Source Code
The Comet model works very similarly, and I'm planning to redo my plot of Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) with it soon.
🚀 Coming Soon
In the next minor version of Starplot (v0.18):
- Custom star catalogs
- Custom sky cultures (constellations, star names)
- Arrow function
These were originally planned for v0.17, but they're proving to be more difficult than I thought so I'm hoping they'll be ready for the next release.
🙋 Help Wanted
Want to help make Starplot better? Here are a few things we need help with right now:
- Sources for various sky cultures (ideally constellation lines defined by the HIP id of the stars)
- How to calculate BV color index from Gaia EDR3 data
- Adding more language translations - details here
Read more about contributing here ↗️
💙 Show your support for Starplot
- All Sky Map - made with Starplot!
- Starplot stickers
Happy Starplotting!
Steve Berardi