[pysolar-discuss] Definition of horizon

[Jonas Hagen <jonas.hagen@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi

Is it right that pysolar uses the astronomical horizon definition 
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon#/media/File:Horizons.svg)?
I got confused, because the documentation states "The altitude is 
positive when the sun is above the horizon." and I immediately 
associated this with sunrise.

Background:

(I am using the master branch version.)

I am trying to get sunrise and sunset times in high elevations (up to 
100 km above sea level). As the |get_{altitude|position}()| functions 
take an elevation argument, I would expect them to return a different 
value for sun altitude, based on the given elevation.

> > >  import  datetime
> > >  from  pysolarimport  solar
> > >  sunrise_time=  datetime.datetime(2018,3,12,6,55,0)
> > >  solar.get_position(46.95,7.47, sunrise_time,elevation=100000)
(95.03439124507312,0.5961510806209467)
> > >  solar.get_position(46.95,7.47, sunrise_time,elevation=0)
(95.03439124029069,0.596183960394498)

The difference between the two altitudes is in the order of 3e-5 and 
thus much less than expected. What is the elevation parameter and how 
could I get the sun altitude in arbitrary elevations?

If the astronomical horizon is used


Best regards,

Jonas