This is a custom component for Home Assistant that makes a live polar sun path chart for your location. Besides the Sun, it also shows the Moon and a few major planets. Plus, it shows the Winter and Summer solstice sun paths so you can see where you are in the seasons!

This uses the skyfield library to do the computations.

To use:

• Install this in your custom_components folder
• Download the prerequisites: pip3 install skyfield matplotlib numpy (no longer necessary with hassio!)
• Add the following to your home assistant config:

camera:
  platform: ha_skyfield
  show_constellations: false

• Add a picture entity to your GUI with this camera. It will update live.

Optional configuration:

• show_time add a timestamp to the plot
• show_legend add a legend of the bodies
• show_constellations enable or disable the constellations (default is True).
• planet_list customize which planets are shown
• constellations_list customize which constellations are shown (use names from here)
• north_up (boolean) puts North at the top (useful in the Southern Hemisphere)
• horizontal_flip (boolean) flips projection horizontally
• image_type (string) Optional - provide image format extension. Tested options are png (default) and jpg.

Known Issues:

• WARNING: High CPU usage! The underlying library is relatively long-running. Disable or limit constellations if you're using a smaller computer, like a Raspberry Pi. Even with them off, the CPU load may unacceptable. Options and more discussion in #4

• Does not follow Theme because of matplotlib backend (see #5

• More (maybe) at Issues

Inspiration comes from the University of Oregon Solar Radiation Monitoring Lab.