Examples

Please note that CALLHORIZONS is not maintained anymore. Please use [astroquery.jplhorizons](http://astroquery.readthedocs.io/en/latest/jplhorizons/jplhorizons.html) instead, which will be maintained in the future and offers additional functionality. I apologize for any inconvenience.

1. Find the hours on the night of 2015-10-25 (UT) when Centaur Echeclus is observable with airmass < 1.5 from Mauna Kea (observatory code: 568) during dark time:

   import callhorizons
   echeclus = callhorizons.query('echeclus')
   echeclus.set_epochrange('2015-10-25', '2015-10-26', '1h')
   echeclus.get_ephemerides(568)
   print(echeclus[(echeclus['solar_presence'] != 'daylight') & (echeclus['airmass'] < 1.5)]['datetime'])
   

   Note: you can also use HORIZONS’ own skip daylight function and set an airmass limit during the query:

   echeclus.get_ephemerides(568, skip_daylight=True, airmass_lessthan=1.5)
   print(echeclus['datetime'])
   

2. Pull the orbital elements of Saturn on a specific date:

   import callhorizons
   saturn = callhorizons.query('Saturn', smallbody=False)
   saturn.set_discreteepochs('2451234.5')
   saturn.get_elements()
   

   This will cause a ValueError: Ambiguous target name; check URL: .... Why did that happen? Check out the URL that is provided with the error message; it will tell you the reason. The target name is ambiguous, since there is (the center of) Saturn and the barycenter of the Saturn system. If you are interested in the planet, use the ID number (699) instead of the planets name:

   import callhorizons
   saturn = callhorizons.query('699', smallbody=False)
   saturn.set_discreteepochs('2451234.5')
   saturn.get_elements()
   

3. more examples will come in the future … (what are you interested in?)