steveberardi
what about Windows
Seems to be a great package but what about Windows? With Windows 11 and Python 3.12.8 I did "pip install starplot" and got this error: ... File "C:\Users\fickd\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python312\Lib\subprocess.py", line 1538, in _execute_child hp, ht, pid, tid = _winapi.CreateProcess(executable, args, ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ FileNotFoundError: [WinError 2] [end of output]
I don't have any machines running Windows, so haven't tried running Starplot there. But, as long as GDAL/GEOS can run on windows, then it should be possible. I'd welcome any PR with instructions on how to install Starplot on windows - see here :)
As an alternative, you could run Starplot through a Docker container on windows. Here's a basic Dockerfile that'll get you up and running:
FROM python:3.11.7-bookworm AS base
WORKDIR /starplot
# Install required system libraries (GEOS + GDAL)
RUN apt-get clean && apt-get update -y && apt-get install -y libgeos-dev libgdal-dev
RUN pip install starplot
Even on my mac, I prefer running everything through Docker like this to help keep environments isolated (and consistent across my machine, CI, etc).
Also, I'd recommend using Python 3.11 to run Starplot. Python 3.12 is supported, but many of Starplot's dependencies do not have binary wheels for 3.12 so installation can take longer.
I've just recently installed starplot on my Windows 11 laptop. I'd been running it on my Mac M4 laptop. Installation was a breeze for me. I run python from Anaconda so I first created a new environment
conda create --name stars python=3.13
Activated it
conda activate stars
And then installed it using pip
python -m pip install starplot
No errors were generated so I copied over the examples folder from the source installation on the mac and ran all of the example scripts. All were successful and all created a PNG file. A cursory look of each image was done and all appeared correct. I don't know if running all these sufficiently exercised all or most of the code but they all ran. I did not need to install the GEOS or GDAL libraries. They must have been included in one or more of the wheels that were installed as part of the entire package.
@sizzzzlerz thanks so much for adding that info! That's great to hear Starplot can run on Windows. I noticed you also ran it with Python 3.13? In my limited testing so far, Starplot doesn't pass all unit tests in 3.13, so there's probably some functionality that doesn't work. It's on my todo list to investigate more, but let me know if you notice any unexpected behavior in 3.13. Thanks!!
Great project! I'm amateur astronomer, and love star charts. I've just installed successfully on Windows 10 with Python 3.10, no errors, and the tutorial examples worked on the first try.
Looking forward for custom catalogs!
I've heard many reports of people successfully installing and running Starplot on Windows, so I'm going to close this issue now 👍 😄