|
Programs
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
|
|||||||
|
|||||||
|
|||||||
Here's a few interesting Astronomy programs. More will follow. Click on images to download.
|
Celestia
|
|
 |
Celestia is an excellent program that simulates the entire solar system as well as thousands of stars in our galactic neighbourhood, including extrasolar planetary systems. The program provides you with the ability to explore this vast space with goto / match orbit etc functions and time controls. The OpenGL graphics are excellent as well. Whether you are an astrophysics geek or not, download Celestia and have fun. |
 |
|
|
OpenUniverse
|
|
 |
OpenUniverse is a 3D solar system simulator using OpenGL. The graphics are awesome, although the program is not as easy to use as Celestia (no mouse control). Overall a very good simulation, try it for yourself. The author is currently helping the author of Celestia. |
|
|
|
|
EZ
Cosmos 3.0 (1495kb)
|
|
 |
EZ Cosmos is a planetarium simulator program. You can enter the date from 2000BC to 4000AD and a location on earth and the program will plot the sky with planets, stars down to magnitude 8, and deep space objects. EZC is excellent at printing star charts. Animations are also possible, so you can view solar eclipses, lunar and solar transits, conjunctions and much more. |
|
|
|
|
Dance
Of The Planets v2.00 (585kb)
|
|
 |
Dance of the Planets is the best solar system simulator program. It allows users to view the solar system with the stellar background from anywhere in the solar system. The animations accurately describe the movements of the solar system bodies and gives breathtaking views, like polar views of the orbits etc, that are not within the grasp of planetarium type programs. |
|
|
|
|
Orbits
: Voyage through the Solar System
v2.0
(638kb)
|
|
 |
Orbits is a fun program that explores the solar system. All of the planets and their motions around the sun are described in detail. This program is recommended for beginners, as the descriptions and explanations given are very easy to understand. There is even a nice little game that requires you to shift a spaceship or satellite to the correct orbit around the earth. |
|
|
|
|
Galaxy
Collisions (299kb)
|
|
 |
Gallaxy collisions is a program distrubued by the Astronomy Magazine, that effectively simulates the collision of two galaxies. It is not the most sophisticated program of ots kind, as only the target galaxies general properties can be changed. Nevertheless, some interesting collision effects can be simulated and the program is generally easy to use and supports saves for both initialization values and animations. |
|
|
|
|
The
Solar System... Revealed! (1072kb)
|
|
 |
Back in 1993 I started learning QBasic. I did not have a book, so I relied on QBasic's online help to learn the language. I wrote a few small programs that were of use to me and I also started developing an astronomy program devoted to the solar system. I later switched to Quick Basic 4.5 which let me create executables. Here, you can download the Solar System Revealed (that' s what I called it) program, as it was when I stopped working on it in 1994. The source is provided but, as you may notice, it is very primitive and not at all "cleaned". For example, I did not even know the existence (nor the use) of subprograms and procedures until very late. Also, I knew no programming techniques, since I wasn' t taught. So, this program is here for nostalgic reasons. I retrieved it from an ancient diskette and was happy it run on my system. I remember it being somewhat slow on the 386/20MHz I had back then. I remember having developed a little further (I recall a lunar phase utility), but I couldn' t find it on a newer disk. So, download at your own risk! In case you are wondering, animations ("movies") and some graphics were done using Deluxe Paint Animator 2. |
 |
|