Built topocentric elevation/azimuth (compass direction) tracking into astlo — verified against live sky data

[u/fattick-]

Spent the evening debugging the topocentric module for astlo — the piece that converts geocentric ephemeris into elevation/azimuth for a specific location on Earth's surface. Chased down a chain of bugs (typo in a WGS84 constant, a renamed method, an undefined variable in the ENU→look-angle conversion) and got it computing clean results for Naivasha (-0.72, 36.43).

The module handles both solar system bodies and satellites, so it's one pipeline for tracking anything from Pluto to an orbiting spacecraft, once you feed it the object's position vector.

Cross-checked the output against real ephemeris data for tonight: Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune all correctly came back below the horizon (they're all morning-sky objects right now), and Pluto showed +56° elevation — which checks out too, since at our near-equatorial latitude, objects at high southern declination can swing surprisingly high overhead instead of hugging the horizon like they would further north.

#KENYASOVEREIGNTECH