astropy fails to download IERS-A table when offline

[scriptorron]

From time to time astropy wants to download the latest IERS-A table from internet. If the Pi is offline this will raise an error. The automated download can be disabled with:

from astropy.utils.iers import conf
conf.auto_max_age = None

Preferred solution is to replace astropy by the same library used in KStars. This would also remove the discrepancy between the positions calculated by KStars and astropy.

[scriptorron]

See more information about the IERS data download: https://docs.astropy.org/en/stable/utils/iers.html

Probably it is also needed to set:

astropy.utils.iers.conf.iers_degraded_accuracy = "ignore"

Make a configuration setting in the INI file to allow data download for setups with internet access.

I checked if I can replace astropyby the library (libnova) used in KStars. There are arguments against it:

• astropy is likely more accurate than libnova
• astropy is anyway needed to create FITS images

[scriptorron]

Download of IERS data is disabled now.