
                               PyEphem
                          Installation Notes


PyEphem provides an "ephem" Python module that can perform many
astronomical computations.  You can find the most recent version at

   http://rhodesmill.org/pyephem/

The computation routines behind PyEphem are from the "XEphem" program
by Elwood Charles Downey (ecdowney@ClearSkyInstitute.com), available
from http://www.clearskyinstitute.com/xephem/.  See the COPYING file
in this directory for licensing information.

INSTALLING

If you have installed the "setuptools" for Python on your system, you
can ask for PyEphem to be installed simply by typing:

        easy_install ephem

Alternately, if you are on a Windows machine, look at the PyEphem web
site and you should find prominent links to an auto-install tool for
Windows.

If, instead, you want to build and install the module yourself, you
only need Python, your C compiler, and the standard Python distutils.
You can run the setup.py script in this directory to build or install
the package.  Typically, entering

	python setup.py install

(which you will probably need to do as root, unless you have Python
installed in your home directory) will both build and install the
module, which you can use in your Python programs with either an

	import ephem

or perhaps a

	from ephem import *

to avoid putting "ephem." in front of all the names.  There are
documentation files in the doc/ directory, some small scripts in the
examples/ directory, and test suites for verifying your installation
in the test/ directory.

DOCUMENTATION

See the "doc" directory inside of the module for documentation, or
visit the web site at http://rhodesmill.org/pyephem and try starting
with the "Quick Reference" to learn how PyEphem works.

AUTHOR

Brandon Craig Rhodes
brandon@rhodesmill.org
http://rhodesmill.org/brandon
