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Changelog

v0.17.x

  • Consolidates the scope/binoculars field of view function into a general optic fov function (which means it also supports cameras now)
  • Adds models for comets and satellites and supports data formats from MPC and CelesTrak
  • Adds font name and weight style properties to legend labels
  • Adds callable for constellation labels
  • Deprecates the labels parameter on star/DSO/constellation plotting functions
  • Defines a default label_fn for stars/DSOs/constellations
  • Introduces localization with two language translations for labels: French and Chinese
  • [v0.17.1]
    • Adds Lithuanian translation
    • Fixes a few small errors in the Chinese translation

v0.16.x

Documentation | Migration Guide

  • Adds support for gradient backgrounds
  • Refactors projections, allowing you to change central RA/DEC
  • Adds equidistant and oblique Mercator projections
  • Introduces an Observer model to encapsulate a time and place
  • Makes zenith plots a separate plot type
  • Adds a function for plotting a star magnitude scale (experimental, feedback wanted!)
  • Adds more location options for legends and allows separate X/Y padding
  • Adds a settings class for managing global settings
  • Adds a global setting for how text is rendered in SVG exports
  • Adds more options for plotting gridlines on horizon plots
  • Adds a common_names field to deep sky objects
  • Added more public properties to plots (including magnitude_range and alt/az for optic plots)
  • Adds the BLUE_NIGHT plot style
  • [v0.16.1] Fixes constellation borders and Milky Way outline when they cross the first point of Aries (RA=0)
  • [v0.16.2] Fixes bug with rendering constellation labels as text elements for SVG exports
  • [v0.16.3] Locks version of DuckDB to < 1.4 (which seems to have an incompatibility issue)
  • [v0.16.4]
    • Removes pydantic-settings dependency
    • Fixes constellation line plotting on a few projections to make them straight
    • Cleans up a few imports to improve performance
  • [v0.16.5] Adds missing legend function to horizon and optic plots
  • [v0.16.6] Support for Python 3.13
  • [v0.16.7] Fixes bug with plotting horizon labels on horizon plots that prevented the use of offsets

v0.15.x

Documentation

  • Replaces data backend with DuckDB + Ibis, making plotting 2-3x faster and object lookup up to 10x faster
  • Changes default unit of right ascension to degrees (0...360)
  • Improves performance of constellation label placement
  • Separates the constellation Serpens into two "separate" parts (Cauda and Caput)
  • Adds a new "blue gold" style extension
  • Adds a new field to the constellation model: star_hip_ids which is a list of hip ids for stars that make up the lines in the constellation
  • Dropped support for Python 3.9 (Ibis requires 3.10 or higher)
  • Increased minimum required version of GeoPandas to 1.0.1
  • [v0.15.1] Fixes bug with build script that prevented starplot data from being included in the distribution
  • [v0.15.2] Fixes a few colors in the dark blue and blue gold style extensions
  • [v0.15.3] Locks version of a few dependencies (DuckDB and Ibis)
  • [v0.15.4]
    • Fixes constellation lines for Mensa
    • Optimizes star catalog loading
  • [v0.15.5]
    • Fixes compatibility with Ibis 10.x
    • Fixes bug with getting star names and designations
  • [v0.15.6]
    • Removes dependency on plotting stars before constellation labels
    • Fixes static constellation label plotting
    • Fixes polygon clipping on optic plots
    • Adds HII Regions to the nebula() function
  • [v0.15.7]
    • Various small changes to make it easier to build AI agents that use Starplot
    • Adds a sql kwarg to object selection and plotting functions to allow querying by SQL
  • [v0.15.8] Fixes four point star marker

v0.14.x

Documentation

  • Adds horizon plots, which show what the sky looks like from the horizon at a specific time and place
  • Improved auto placement of constellation labels
  • Separates styles and functions for constellation lines and labels
  • Plots constellation lines and borders as a LineCollection to improve performance
  • Adds option to suppress warnings from dependencies
  • Adds legend labels to shape functions

v0.13.x

Documentation

  • Adds a scale factor to control sizing of all objects/text
  • Adds an "auto" option for label offsets from markers
  • Adds constellation lines to label collision detection
  • Adds a gid to plotted objects to make exported SVGs easier to work with in external applications (e.g. Inkscape)
  • Adds Flamsteed numbers to stars
  • Adds all star names from IAU
  • Adds the standard symbol for planetary nebulae
  • Adds a border size/color property to label styles
  • Bundles fonts: Inter & GFS Didot

v0.12.x

Documentation

  • Adds Shapely geometry to all sky object models, including support for intersects in where clauses
  • Adds kwarg to map plots to allow custom clip paths
  • Adds callables for star/dso labels
  • Adds a line function for plotting lines
  • Adds the standard marker for globular clusters (circle with a cross) and double stars
  • Adds an ellipse marker for galaxies
  • Adds colors for some DSO labels that were missing them in some style extensions
  • Removed the kwarg types from dsos, so ALL DSO types are plotted by default
  • [v0.12.1] Fixes issue with plotting the Milky Way when it consists of multiple polygons
  • [v0.12.2] Allows tuples for line styles on polygons and adds geometry kwarg to polygon function
  • [v0.12.3] Fixes bug with constellation names
  • [v0.12.4] Makes labels on markers default to None
  • [v0.12.5]
    • Fixes bug with a few constellation ids
    • Fixes bug with zenith() function on map plots

v0.11.x

Documentation

  • Replaces Tycho-1 stars with an abridged version of the Big Sky Catalog
  • Adds style option for a star's edge color (previously this was forced to be the background color)
  • Adds cardinal direction labels to the horizon plotting function
  • Removes behavior that automatically plots the cardinal direction border on zenith plots
  • Adds function for plotting the zenith
  • Adds support for downloading the full Big Sky Catalog (2.5+ million stars)
  • Various (minor) plotting optimizations
  • Increases star sizes on map plots
  • Adds TYC id to stars (if available)
  • Adds the following projections: Robinson, Lambert Azimuthal Equal-Area
  • Adds a constellation model, allowing you to selectively plot objects by their constellation
  • [v0.11.1] Fixes default horizon style to be consistent with grayscale extension
  • [v0.11.2] Adds requests as a required dependency
  • [v0.11.3] Fixes bug with plotting the celestial equator
  • [v0.11.4] Fixes bug with filtering DSOs by NGC/IC identifier

v0.10.x

Documentation

  • Adds function for plotting text
  • Adds where kwarg to star/DSO plotting functions to selectively plot stars
  • Adds easier way to override style properties on plotting functions - thanks to Graham Schmidt
  • Adds function to plot the Sun - thanks to Graham Schmidt
  • Adds option to illustrate the Moon's phase - thanks to Graham Schmidt
  • Adds objects property to plots, which stores lists of objects that have been plotted
  • Adds object finder helpers
  • Adds customizable anchor points for text labels
  • Adds Pluto as a planet :)
  • Fixes clipping issues with polygons
  • Fixes a few issues with gridlines
  • [v0.10.1]
    • Fixes bug with plotting planets as true apparent size
    • Adds lat/lon kwargs to Sun/Moon/Planet models to allow apparent RA/DEC calculation
  • [v0.10.2] Fixes a few issues with plotting legends

v0.9.x

Documentation

  • Added perspective projections (Orthographic, Stereographic) to map plots - many thanks to @bathoorn
  • Zenith plots are now a type of projection for map plots, to support plotting the Milky Way, constellation borders and more - many thanks to @bathoorn
  • Removed the visible style property and instead now you control what is plotted by calling functions on the plot (e.g. p.stars(mag=8)) to be more consistent with other plotting frameworks and allow more control over what's plotted and how. For example, now you can do things like plotting very bright stars with a different marker (and sizes, etc) than dimmer stars.
  • Optional callables for calculating star size/alpha/color when plotting stars
  • Nebula outlines! via OpenNGC
  • Stars are now plotted in order of their calculated size, which prevents "bigger" stars from hiding "smaller" stars
  • Added more marker symbols and style extensions
  • [v0.9.1] Fixes bug with plotting moon and planets as their true size

v0.8.x

Documentation

  • Adds new Milky Way outline created from a NASA image, and broken into sections to speed up plotting/exporting
  • Adds styling support for more DSO types
  • Adds support for Mollweide projection
  • Fixes map and optic plots to handle wrapping of RA (e.g. plotting RA extent from 2h -> 18h)
  • Fixes a bug in all plots that prevented some star styles to not get applied
  • [v0.8.1] Fixes a small bug in adjusting RA extent on map plots
  • [v0.8.2] Fixes a small bug in determining if a RA/DEC is in bounds of a plot
  • [v0.8.3] More consistent polygon/circle sizing across projections
  • [v0.8.4] Fixes a small bug in plotting text labels of DSOs, which prevented some styles from getting applied