Palestinian
Astronomical Society
(PAS)
|
Palestinian
Astronomical Society
(PAS) |
Astronomy Software
This page contains some useful freeware and shareware astronomy programs that you can download for free.If you find special features in any software that you think it could be helpful and useful to the members of the society please send an email to palestine-astronomy@onelist.com .
Programs List :
1. SkyGlobe Planetarium v3.6 .
SkyGlobe Planetarium is absolutely the slickest star gazer
system we have ever seen. You can use it for serious astronomical
study, or just enjoy the fantastic graphics. It realistically and
beautifully displays the planets, the sun and moon, the constellations
(about 29,000 stars), the Milky Way and
Messier objects. You can display a PCX (PC-Paintbrush)
or GIF image of an object if you have one. They're all are shown from the
vantage point of any of more than 230 cities and locations.The on-screen
menu allows you to dynamically control the zoom factor, the speed,
direction, location, the time, the date, and what's displayed. You can
also print the screens to take with you for a night's observation.
Compressed Size=362 Kb .
2. SkyView v3.0 .
Imagine lying on your back, far from street lights and
buildings, and looking up at the sky. SkyView is a Windows planetarium
for your desktop. View the sun, moon, all planets that are visible to the
naked eye, many stars,constellations, the ecliptic, celestial,galactic
equator and equatorial coordinate system grid lines, and the North and
South poles, from any location on the earth. With SkyView, you can look
at
the sky for any day; past, present and future, between
the years 4000 BC and 4000 AD. Click on a star to view detailed information
including its name, constellation, latitude and longitude, right ascension,
declination, and parallax. View the motions of the stars, sun, moon and
planets over time and print the sky display to take with you on skywatching
journeys. The online help will guide you through setting up SkyView to
fit your needs.
Compressed Size= 729 Kb .
3. EmapWin v1.01 . 
Released
on 06-14-99
Emapwin is a display of solar eclipse information with a global view to show the path, local condition, start/end times,umbra/penumbra limits, and date. A database lets you step from event to event or search for a particular time period. You can orient your global view over Asia or Europe and you can establish your local position at major Asian cities or historic locations. You will need some prior knowledge of terms relating to eclipses, since there is only a brief manual and no online help.
Compressed Size= 325 Kb .
4. Home Planet v3.0
Release 3 of Home Planet, a comprehensive astronomy / space / satellite-tracking package for Microsoft Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0 and above, is now available.Release 3 of Home Planet is a native 32-bit Windows application which cannot be used on Windows 3.1.
Home Planet is in the public domain; it is free software. It is not shareware--you don't have to register it or pay anybody, and the version you download is fully functional as soon as you install it.You are free to give copies to your friends, post it on other systems, and otherwise use and distribute it in any way without permission, restriction, attribution, or compensation of any kind.
Compressed Size=7221 Kb .
5. Home Planet Screen Saver
A screen saver which displays the the Earth map with day and night regions and the current position and phase of the Moon like Home Planet's main Map window is available. It used to be included with Home Planet, but has been broken out into a separate package to reduce download time for Home Planet users who have no interest in the screen saver.
Compressed Size=266 Kb .
6. SPACE WEIGHT 
This cute little freeware program allows you to enter your weight on earth and find your weight on any other location in the solar system.
Compressed Size=20 Kb ONLY! .
7. The Galilean Moon Plotter v1.6b 
The Galilean Moon Plotter is a very easy to use Microsoft Windows 95 Freeware program which allows you to plot the positions of the four Galilean Moons (Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto) of Jupiter. You can even make the program draw a monthly chart of their relative movement around Jupiter. These charts / diagrams are similar to those which are printed in many astronomical magazines and annuals. GMP also gives you Jupiter's physical ephemerides and coordinates .
Compressed Size=141 Kb .
8. Windows Dictionary of Astronomy v2.0
The Windows Dictionary of Astronomy is a comprehensive computerised astronomical dictionary.This user-friendly software package for Windows 3.1, 95 or NT comprises some 2000 entries with associated terms incorporating direct hypertext links to related educational articles, all geared towards promoting a deeper understanding of astronomy. The program is designed to assist in the pursuit of knowledge at all levels, and will prove an invaluable resource to those engaged in the study of astronomy everywhere, whether at school or university or as amateur or armchair astronomers. The WDA would even serve as a useful general reference for professionals.
Compressed Size=985 Kb .
9. Visual Planets v2.0a
Visual Planets provides an educational tour of the Sun and nine planets.It includes information on the Sun, planets, satellites, and the spacecraft that have visited them. The tour uses hypertext to let you click on a desired planet to display information and images about that planet. It includes information about the planet's moons, atmosphere, structure, rings, mythology, missions, statistics and more. Unusual terms are clearly defined with direct links to over 100 terms taken from the Windows Dictionary of Astronomy. It contains over 150 of the best images from NASA's planetary exploration program.
Compressed Size=2.14 MB .
10. Hertzprung-Russell (H-R) Diagram Calculator
This is an excellent program, utilizing the Hertzprung-Russell
Diagram. Find a star in the sky. Identify it using planetarium software.
Then use this software to see
where it falls on the H-R diagram. Discover its relative
size to the sun, its surface temperature, its spectral class, its actual
brightness, and other interesting facts about the star. It is well worth
the small disk space and short download time.
Compressed Size=319 KB.
11. Moon Calculator v5.1
MoonCalc is a DOS program which provides information relating
to the position, age, phase,orientation, appearance and visibility of the
moon for any given date, time and location on earth. It also provides the
time and direction of moonrise and moonset, interval between sunset and
moonset, interval between sunrise and moonrise, date/time of astronomical
new moon (conjunction)and full
moon and predicts the likelihood of visualising the new
moon from a particular location. MoonCalc provides Hijri calendar data
including location dependent Hijri date conversion using predicted lunar
visibility.
The program can scan the globe at the start of any lunar month to find the location, date/time and direction of earliest crescent sighting using a variety of ancient and modern moon sighting criteria. The program is able to draw world maps (flat and spherical projections)showing areas of the globe where the young moon is likely to be seen.
Graphical displays showing the position of the moon on a star chart and the position of the moon in a simulated local sky can be produced and printed out. A close-up of the near side of the moon (showing orientation of the moon's limbs and position of the lunar craters), correct for a given observation site, is also provided. This close up takes into account the effects of libration and 'limb shortening' (optional).
The program has a built in atlas database which stores latitude and longitude data of upto 1000 cities (ships with about 100 cities already entered). There are many user-configurable features.
Compressed Size=201 KB.
All Rights Reserved , Copyright © 1999 Palestinian Astronomical
Society .
Jerusalem - Palestine.
