Contents Previous Next

xephem

Xephem-lite , a sampler of the interactive astronomy program

Version : 3.5.2
Author(s) : Elwood Downey (ecdowney@ClearSkyInstitute.com)
License : xephem
Website : http://www.ClearSkyInstitute.com

Disk space required for installation is 10.48 Mb

After the package is installed it can be accessed using the command


		/opt/lfa/startxephem

Summary

The Interactive Cross-Platform
Astronomical Software Ephemeris

This "lite" version of Xephem is provided courtesy of Elwood Downey.
The full version is available on cdrom and rates as one of the
best bargains in Astronomical software - buy it!

main features:

computes heliocentric, geocentric and topocentric information for all objects;
has built-in support for all planets; the moons of Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Earth; central meridian
longitude of Mars and Jupiter; Saturn's rings; and Jupiter's Great Red Spot.
allows user-defined objects including stars, deepsky objects, asteroids, comets and Earth satellites.
offers many large databases including Tycho, Hipparcos, GSC, USNO.
displays data in configurable tabular formats in conjunction with several interactive graphical views;
graphically displays a 24 hour period showing when any selected objects are up;
displays 3-D stereo views of the Solar System that are particularly well suited for visualizing comet
trajectories;
quickly finds all close pairs of objects in the sky;
sorts and prints all catalogs with very flexible criteria for creating custom observing lists;
can create plots of any pairs of all data fields throughout the program;
downloads AAVSO light curves directly online;
downloads current asteroid and comets lists from Lowell and MPC;
downloads timely Earth satellite orbital TLE parameters;
downloads Digitized Sky Survey FITS files from STScI or ESO;
displays seti@home client progress and plots position being processed on Sky View map;
provides a handy spreadsheet for converting among equatorial, ecliptic, horizontal and galactic coordinates;
includes a compiler for entering and solving user-written functions using any data fields;
serves as the control point for GOTO telescopes such as Meade LX200 (Mac users will need a
USB-to-Serial adaptor, not included, but we do support those made by KeySpan);
displays FITS files and DSS images overlaid with properly registered database symbols and other graphical
information;
performs automatic star pattern matching to solve for accurate World Coordinate System on any image;
performs 1-click 2D Gaussian relative and absolute photometry;
lets you define and save any number of Eyepieces to use in sky maps;
displays your own local horizon profile;
can store sets of Sky View options for easy playback later;
uses high quality Postscript for all printing.

Screenshots

Contents Previous Next