John's amateur astronomy - Software

This page contains software that I use that I think others might be interested in. Some of it is stuff that I wrote, others are just things I like.

Some of the stuff that appears here will be programs I originally wrote just for myself, so please forgive the sloppy code.

Sky Atlas 2000 & Uranometria Chart Numbers - subroutine that will give you the Sky Atlas 2000 or Uranometria 2nd edition chart number for any RA/Dec coordinate.
ScaleSolar - This is the program that generates the scale model of the solar system web page that you can see in the "education" part of this site. It's a cgi-bin application, so you pretty much need to run it on a web server. It was written in Perl for an Apache server running under Linux. However, the code is pretty understandable, so it could be used as a basis for other projects.

Sky mapping software - FREE!

I've started using the excellent Windows Freeware app Cartes du Ciel (Sky Charts) for my charts, even though I own several other pieces of software. It's just a good piece of software.

The home page for Cartes du Ciel, where you can download the program and many addictional catalogs, is at http://www.stargazing.net/astropc/

In addition, I've downloaded and use the Hubble GSC (compact edition, about 350 megs) and the USNO-SA2.0 (about 650 megs) - Instructions for downloading can be found in the documentation, particularly this page.

Since these catalogs are all public data, it's OK to make copies for your friends.

Office software - FREE!

A good office suite is a very nice thing to have. Particularly a good spreadsheet program; I use spreadsheets to track observing lists (there are many lists available on the web in Excel format), to help me decide on eyepiece purchases (automatically calculate FOV/power on a whole range of EPs in different scopes or with different barlows, etc.

Of course, the "standard" is Microsoft Office, but I've never been one to follow the crowd. Also Office is DAMNED expensive. Luckly there is a great alternative. Head on over to http://www.openoffice.org - there you will find a powerful, full-featured office suite that is totally compatible with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, and is TOTALLY FREE.

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