Tiny, pure python solar module for handling the variety of calculations that are commonly required to make sense of the complex relationship between a point on the earths surface and the sun

There are several other libraries that do the same things and more. One of them, pysolar, does a good job comparing itself to other modules. This module is most like pysolar, and that module offers more long term support and more rigorous testing.

Started with replicating astronomical algorithms by Jean Meeus. You can read about and see some alternate ways of computing these at NOAA's ESRL here

Parts have been expanded by more recent work by NREL, namely from this document

The core calculator class manages intermediate computations necessary for returning whatever value is ultimately desired. It supports numpy vectorized computations for:

• A single point in space, at a single time (scalar).
• A single point in space, at many times (1d).
• A meshgrid of 2d points, at a single time (2d).
• A meshgrid of 2d points at many times (3d).

One of the use cases served is to use some reference raster data source and compute solar values for every nominal pixel location at a corresponding time.

todo