Planetary Heliacal Case Ledger (2026-04-09)

Purpose:

• provide the concrete case ledger for expanding planetary heliacal validation
• turn the corpus-design document into explicit future case rows
• keep validation-row design separate from test implementation

Upstream documents:

• wiki/03_validation/PLANETARY_HELIACAL_VALIDATION_CORPUS_2026-04-09.md
• wiki/03_validation/HELIACAL_VALIDATION_MATRIX_2026-04-09.md

Current status:

• partially populated ledger
• current admitted rows now explicitly capture the cases already embodied in tests/unit/test_planet_heliacal.py and tests/integration/test_visibility_validation.py

Current Admitted Slice

Existing planetary validation already covers a narrow slice with:

• known apparition-date style checks for narrow helper functions
• generalized-event checks against published windows for selected Venus and Jupiter cases

This ledger is for what comes next, not for rewriting the current slice.

Candidate Case Table

Case ID	Body	Event kind	Latitude band	Source kind	Expected form	Difficulty	Admission status	Notes
PHC-001	Mercury	heliacal rising	low or mid latitude	candidate needed	exact date or bounded window	hard	candidate_needed	Mercury should stress threshold geometry.
PHC-002	Mercury	heliacal setting	low or mid latitude	candidate needed	exact date or bounded window	hard	candidate_needed	Pair with PHC-001 if source basis is coherent.
PHC-003	Venus	heliacal rising	mid latitude	repo-admitted apparition-date/window slice	expected date near 2020-06-20 or bounded window	easy-medium	admitted_current_slice	Based on tests/unit/test_planet_heliacal.py and generalized window integration.
PHC-004	Venus	heliacal setting	mid latitude	repo-admitted apparition-date/window slice	bounded window	easy-medium	admitted_current_slice	Current generalized-event window covers 2021 pre-superior-conjunction last morning visibility.
PHC-005	Venus	acronychal rising	mid latitude	repo-admitted apparition-date/window slice	bounded window	medium	admitted_current_slice	Current generalized-event window covers 2021 first evening visibility after superior conjunction.
PHC-006	Jupiter	heliacal rising	mid latitude	repo-admitted apparition-date/window slice	bounded window	medium	admitted_current_slice	Current generalized-event window covers 2023 post-conjunction morning visibility.
PHC-007	Jupiter	acronychal or heliacal setting	mid latitude	candidate needed	bounded window	medium	candidate_needed	Completes Jupiter family symmetry.
PHC-008	Mars or Saturn	any one clearly sourced event	any usable latitude	candidate needed	exact date or bounded window	medium-hard	optional_later	Only if a stronger source exists.

Current Admitted Rows From Existing Tests

These rows already exist implicitly in the test suite and are now made explicit here:

Admitted row	Body	Event kind	Start JD	Observer	Expected form	Current enforcement path
APR-001	Venus	heliacal rising	2458994.5	35°N, 35°E	expected around 2020-06-20 / JD 2459011 with broad tolerance	tests/unit/test_planet_heliacal.py
APR-002	Jupiter	heliacal rising	2460045.5	35°N, 35°E	expected late April 2023 / JD window 2460060–2460090	tests/unit/test_planet_heliacal.py
APR-003	Venus	acronychal rising	2459299.5	35°N, 35°E	expected late April 2021 / JD window 2459315–2459360	tests/unit/test_planet_heliacal.py
APR-004	Venus	heliacal setting	2459050.5	35°N, 35°E	expected late Jan / early Feb 2021 / JD window 2459230–2459270	tests/unit/test_planet_heliacal.py
APR-005	Saturn	acronychal setting	2459822.5 start search	35°N, 35°E	physically plausible event-family enforcement, not yet named as an external-reference row	tests/unit/test_planet_heliacal.py
APR-006	Venus	heliacal rising	2458994.5	35°N, 35°E	generalized event must land in JD window 2459004.0–2459044.0	tests/integration/test_visibility_validation.py
APR-007	Jupiter	heliacal rising	2460045.5	35°N, 35°E	generalized event must land in JD window 2460050.0–2460110.0	tests/integration/test_visibility_validation.py
APR-008	Venus	acronychal rising	2459299.5	35°N, 35°E	generalized event must land in JD window 2459310.0–2459360.0	tests/integration/test_visibility_validation.py
APR-009	Venus	heliacal setting	2459050.5	35°N, 35°E	generalized event must land in JD window 2459220.0–2459290.0	tests/integration/test_visibility_validation.py

Admission Status Meanings

• existing_slice_plus_expansion family already has some validation basis and should be broadened
• candidate_needed no concrete row captured yet
• optional_later valid only after stronger core rows are assembled
• captured_pending_review row identified but not yet admitted
• admitted_future_row ready for future validation implementation

Row Requirements

Each future admitted row should specify:

• body
• event kind
• source citation
• source type
• observer latitude
• observer longitude or region
• start date or JD
• expected exact date or allowed event window
• tolerance
• notes on visibility criterion or observational ambiguity

Priority Order

1. Mercury morning/evening threshold rows
2. Venus expansion rows beyond the present window checks
3. Jupiter complementary event-family rows
4. only then harder Mars or Saturn cases

Current Honest State

Planetary heliacal validation is real but still sparse.

This ledger exists so the next expansion becomes a designed corpus rather than a drift of miscellaneous apparition examples.