Astropy: Observing planning/scheduling tools

by Brett Morris for Python Software Foundation

We propose a new astropy-affiliated package for planning and scheduling astronomical observations. This package will allow observers to enter a table of astronomical targets and a range of observing dates in order to retrieve (1) the sky-coordinates for their targets, (2) rise/set times, moon/sun separation angles, airmass ephemerides, and other essential positional criteria necessary for determining target observability, and (3) a roughly optimized observing schedule for the list of targets.