Getting Planets Position using PHP & AstroDienst Swiss Ephemeris library.
The SWISS EPHEMERIS is the high precision ephemeris developed by Astrodienst, largely based upon the DExxx ephemerides from NASA's JPL.
You can download the Swiss Ephemeris library from the following links:
http://www.astro.com/ftp/swisseph OR ftp://ftp.astro.com/pub/swisseph
In this repository, I have included following two time range's files.
| Planetary file | Moon file | Main asteroid file | Time range |
|---|---|---|---|
| sepl_12.se1 | semo_12.se1 | seas_12.se1 | 1200 AD – 1799 AD |
| sepl_18.se1 | semo_18.se1 | seas_18.se1 | 1800 AD – 2399 AD |
Time range from 1200 AD to 2399 AD is enough for general astrological calculation.
Name of library files associated with different time ranges is given in this detailed Swiss Ephemeris doc.
You can download the library files for other time ranges from download area: http://www.astro.com/ftp/swisseph/ephe/ OR ftp://ftp.astro.com/pub/swisseph/ephe/. [Note: Scroll down the list and you will see the files to download.]
This code has been tested on Ubuntu Linux Machine.
There are two files at the moment.
1. transit.php : Outputs current planetary positions
2. natal.php : Outputs planetary positions and ascendant degree for any particular date (e.g. birth date)
Here's a line of code from transit.php which is responsible for outputting current planetary positions:
exec ("swetest -edir$libPath -b$date -ut$time -p0123456789mt -n1 -sid1 -eswe -fPls -g, -head", $output_s);
var_dump($output_s);
In the above code, you can see different command line options. You can get details about them from here: https://www.astro.com/cgi/swetest.cgi?arg=-h&p=0
In the output array elements:
- First part is Planet Name
- Second part is Planet Degree
- Third part is Planet Speed per day
The output of the above code will be like below:
array (size=12)
0 => string 'Sun , 113.3930700, 0.9587323' (length=40)
1 => string 'Moon , 318.8409756, 12.9537458' (length=40)
2 => string 'Mercury , 137.1164786, 0.2663238' (length=40)
3 => string 'Venus , 76.6969846, 1.1684473' (length=39)
4 => string 'Mars , 109.0169143, 0.6400332' (length=40)
5 => string 'Jupiter , 174.1758557, 0.1512867' (length=40)
6 => string 'Saturn , 237.2760952, -0.0246188' (length=40)
7 => string 'Uranus , 4.4071387, -0.0054264' (length=39)
8 => string 'Neptune , 319.4429069, -0.0239242' (length=40)
9 => string 'Pluto , 263.3135899, -0.0204321' (length=40)
10 => string 'mean Node , 120.4265476, -0.0529537' (length=40)
11 => string 'true Node , 120.0887980, 0.0073022' (length=40)
Allen Edwall for PHP Scripts for Astrological Websites
#Astrology #Astronomy