Package Author: MarkW
Description:
XEphem is a scientific grade ephemeris program - a piece of software that tells you wehere stuff is - or will be, in the night sky. This software has it roots in the 19080s and is therefore very mature and well behaved (plenty of time for fine tuning after all). Although it uses a motif interface, it is an exceptionally capabale, useful and accurate tool for both profesional and amateur astronomers. And no, the motif interface is never likely to be changed!
This is a port of the free version of XEphem, which is functionally equivalent of the commercial version. The only difference between the commercial version and the free version is in the star catalogues and gallery images supplied. This pnd is structured so that you can use the fairly licensed commercial catalogues and galleries by replacing the appropriate directories in your appdata directory. To enable this, 12.7 MB of data is copied across to your appdata directory upon initial startup.
XEphem not only provides great star and solar system charting abilities, it also has (amongst other things):
* Integrated observing logbook
* Integrated lunar atlas
* Integrated image library
* Satellite orbital tracking
* Animation building facilities
* Telescope control facilities
This list is in no way exhaustive. XEPhem behaves well on the Opean Pandora screen since its windows are fully re-sizeable and are broken into functionality groups (you don't just get one huge, visually confusing window).
Although I have removed a graphic image that caused the initial window to be bigger than the OP screen, you may still need to set your taskbar to autohide for the main window to display properly.
I have included a copy of the XEphem manual in the Documentation directory off the root of the pnd.
Visit the Clear Skies Institute web site for further details of what this very capable piece of software can do, and seriously consider buying a copy of the commercial version! The author and other users are VERY responsive in terms of providing help and assistance and incorporating functionality suggestions into future versions.
29/07/2013 21:32 UTC
v1.0.1.1
29/07/2013 20:54 UTC
v1.0.1.1