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SOLVED.

I want to calculate the visible part of an asteroid (I'll use the Moon in this example) from the Chile VLT observatory (latitude, longitude coordinates = -24.62733, -70.40417).

On the NAIF website, I read that I need to use a TK frame topographic for this. I have made 2 different attempts, which I will explain below:

  1. First I generated a kernel (topo.tf) following the example on the web:

TK file:

\begindata
  FRAME_VLT_TOPO           =  123456789
  FRAME_123456789_NAME     = 'VLT_TOPO'
  FRAME_123456789_CLASS    =  4
  FRAME_123456789_CLASS_ID =  123456789
  FRAME_123456789_CENTER   =  456789
 
  OBJECT_123456789_FRAME  = 'VLT_TOPO'


  TKFRAME_VLT_TOPO_RELATIVE = 'EARTH_FIXED'
  TKFRAME_VLT_TOPO_TOPO_SPEC     = 'ANGLES'
  TKFRAME_VLT_TOPO_TOPO_UNITS    = 'DEGREES'
  TKFRAME_VLT_TOPO_TOPO_AXES     = ( 3, 2, 3 )
  TKFRAME_VLT_TOPO_TOPO_ANGLES   = ( -289.59583, 
                                   -114.62733, 
                                    180. )


  TKFRAME_EARTH_FIXED_RELATIVE = 'ITRF93'
  TKFRAME_EARTH_FIXED_SPEC     = 'MATRIX'
  TKFRAME_EARTH_FIXED_MATRIX   = ( 1   0   0
                                   0   1   0
                                   0   0   1 )

and I include it in the kernels path ('$KERNELS/topo.tf'). Now, when I run this script (spiceypy)

utc = '2022-01-01T00:00:00.000'
et = spiceypy.str2et(utc)
positions, lightTimes = spiceypy.spkpos(targ='MOON',  
                                        et=et,
                                        ref='J2000', 
                                        abcorr='None', 
                                        obs='123456789')

I got this error:

Toolkit version: CSPICE_N0067

SPICE(SPKINSUFFDATA) --

Insufficient ephemeris data has been loaded to compute the position of 301 (MOON) relative to 123456789 at the ephemeris epoch 2022 JAN 01 00:01:09.183.

spkpos_c --> SPKPOS --> SPKEZP --> SPKGPS

PS: I have tried changing obs='123456789' to obs='Earth' and it works.

  1. So I decided to try the DSS stations kernels (earth_topo_050714.tf), just changing the coordinates of one of the stations for VLT coordinates. To check if it works, I put the coordinates of DSS-14 in DSS-15:

    FRAME_DSS-14_TOPO                     = 1399014
FRAME_1399014_NAME                    = 'DSS-14_TOPO'
FRAME_1399014_CLASS                   = 4
FRAME_1399014_CLASS_ID                = 1399014
FRAME_1399014_CENTER                  = 399014
OBJECT_399014_FRAME                   = 'DSS-14_TOPO'
TKFRAME_DSS-14_TOPO_RELATIVE          = 'EARTH_FIXED'
TKFRAME_DSS-14_TOPO_SPEC              = 'ANGLES'
TKFRAME_DSS-14_TOPO_UNITS             = 'DEGREES'
TKFRAME_DSS-14_TOPO_AXES              = ( 3, 2, 3)
TKFRAME_DSS-14_TOPO_ANGLES            = ( -243.1104612607222,
                                           -54.5740991182250,
                                           180.0000000000000  )


FRAME_DSS-15_TOPO                     = 1399015
FRAME_1399015_NAME                    = 'DSS-15_TOPO'
FRAME_1399015_CLASS                   = 4
FRAME_1399015_CLASS_ID                = 1399015
FRAME_1399015_CENTER                  = 399015
OBJECT_399015_FRAME                   = 'DSS-15_TOPO'
TKFRAME_DSS-15_TOPO_RELATIVE          = 'EARTH_FIXED'
TKFRAME_DSS-15_TOPO_SPEC              = 'ANGLES'
TKFRAME_DSS-15_TOPO_UNITS             = 'DEGREES'
TKFRAME_DSS-15_TOPO_AXES              = ( 3, 2, 3)
TKFRAME_DSS-15_TOPO_ANGLES            = ( -243.1104612607222,
                                           -54.5740991182250,
                                           180.0000000000000  )

In this way, both stations are placed in the same position, but with different names. However, I checked it, and it is not the same. If I run:

utc = '2022-01-01T00:00:00.000'
et = spiceypy.str2et(utc)
positions, lightTimes = spiceypy.spkpos(targ='DSS-14', 
                                        et=et, 
                                        ref='J2000', 
                                        abcorr='None', 
                                        obs='earth') 

position = array([ 4996.35681786, -1481.60674547,  3666.54580269])
    
positions, lightTimes = spiceypy.spkpos(targ='DSS-15', 
                                        et=et, 
                                        ref='J2000', 
                                        abcorr='None', 
                                        obs='earth') 
position = array([ 4996.6441474 , -1481.47031424,  3666.16285994])

Both give similar values, but not the same. What's going on here?

I appreciate any help to do this by any of the three previous methods, and any additional clarification to see where I'm wrong.

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    $\begingroup$ Been a while, but I remember editing the kernel for the DSS stations and replacing the lat/lon of one with the coordinates of the site I wanted. Probably not the right way, but it worked. $\endgroup$
    – Greg Miller
    Aug 19 at 16:55
  • $\begingroup$ I think the issue is that there are no state vectors for the site in earthstns_itrf93_201023.bsp . I declared a VLT site as 399099 using the lat,lon,hgt and X,Y,Z from Astropy's EarthLocation.of_site('paranal') but ran into the same issues above. Without an ephemeris to tell SPICE the vector from center 399 (Earth) to the site, it can't compute the full vector chain out to the Moon. The HORIZONS website can do it for arbitrary and more known sites so you can put in 'VLT' into that and get a vector table and could call this with astroquery.jplhorizons instead maybe? $\endgroup$
    – astrosnapper
    Aug 22 at 23:04
  • $\begingroup$ @GregMiller thanks for the suggestion. It is a good idea, but as you can see in my second try, before that, I checked this idea replacing DSS-15 coordinates with DSS-14 to see if I got the same, and the result is different, so it cannot be the right approach. $\endgroup$
    – Juan Luis Rizos
    Sep 5 at 11:16
  • $\begingroup$ The HORIZONS website has not the option to generate an SPK file from a position on Earth, so I do not know how to use it @astrosnapper $\endgroup$
    – Juan Luis Rizos
    Sep 5 at 12:08
  • $\begingroup$ No those SPK can only be generate for the Solar System Barycenter and the existing kernels such as de44x.bsp will be used for the vectors between other major bodies. I think (haven't tried it) you could use georec to convert your VLT lat,long,alt to an X,Y,Z vector and then use azlcpo to get the vector to your target body...? $\endgroup$
    – astrosnapper
    Sep 6 at 16:56

1 Answer 1

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We need to use PINPOINT utility program (only x86 not ARM). It is available on the utilities NAIF page.

naif.jpl.nasa.gov/naif/utilities.html

With this software, you can create SPK and FK kernels, and then I will work. You have some examples here:

naif.jpl.nasa.gov/pub/naif/utilities/PC_Linux_64bit/pinpoint.ug

Thanks to the NAIF team for the help.

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    Sep 16 at 11:51

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