(meteorobs) Software recommendation

[Jodie Reynolds]

Hello Jim,

Aha!  Knowing that, you'll likely find:

Angle Measure
Compass Marks
and
Oculars

plugins very valuable.

Predictably, Angle Measure is an angle measurement tool, Compass
Marks places compass bearing markings on the horizon, and less
predictably: Oculars allows one to setup "eyepieces", "sensors", and
"telescopes" to display bounding boxes around what that particular
"telescope" can see.

You just feed it your sensor's technical specs and the lens specs and
it calculates the field of view and what the camera can see.  Set it
up so they're both seeing the same thing and alignment can be
incredibly precise.  Not just useful for telescopes, I use it for
wide-field astrophotography all the time (which is why I'm bummed the
ASCOM module doesn't work for me, otherwise I could click on an
object and my 'scope would point at it...)

"Telescopes" is where you enter your lens info, and "sensors" is
where you feed it your CCD.

Remember to setup the precise location of your observatory and you
can use the time/date window to set just about any time in history or
in the future.

Here's a photo I could take tonight:

http://www.spaceballoon.org/stellarium-103.png

In this case, we can see how the 5DmkII would frame the objects of
interest with an 80mm Sigma lens from Sacramento, CA at some given
time in the future.

--- Jodie



Sunday, February 17, 2013, 5:08:54 PM, you wrote:

> Hi Jodie and thanks for the info.
> I am just looking at getting a better handle on where things are in
> the sky at any given time period.  I was happy to see they had a 64bit
> version of the program and that is what I downloaded.  In a few more
> hours, I will be able to look around.  I suppose the end goal is to
> come up with some angles I can use to help locate stuff in the skycam
> better.  I do see some interesting plug-ins and will have to learn how
> to activate them, etc.

> Jim


> On Sun, Feb 17, 2013 at 4:34 PM, Jodie Reynolds
> <spacerocks at spaceballoon.org> wrote:
>> Hello Jim and List,
>>
>> I love Stellarium and all the plugins for it, but it just does not
>> like my ASCOM-compliant telescope.  I've pounded on it for days and
>> surrendered.
>>
>> If you're wanting to generate sky charts and control scopes or
>> similar such things, you might also consider Cartes Du Ciel.  I
>> sucked it up and added the USNO star catalog to 16th mag to it for some of my
>> deep-sky photo astrometrics.
>>
>> If you're wanting satellite predictions, gpredict is what I run on
>> Linux, but Stellarium has a plugin, and Encyclopedia Galactica is
>> also worthwhile.
>>
>> SOLEX hasn't been updated in a long while, but you can run it with
>> DOSBox and it's really quite powerful for chaotic motion and impact
>> probabilities and dynamics.
>>
>>
>> Anyway, there's quite a few good free choices out there, just need to
>> drill into what you're really wanting to accomplish to find the
>> "best".
>>
>>
>> Stellarium and Cartes Du Ciel are both outstanding for the task you
>> listed.
>>
>> --- Jodie
>>
>> Sunday, February 17, 2013, 1:27:07 PM, you wrote:
>>
>>> Thanks Chris!
>>
>>> I downloaded Stellarium and I'll give that a try tonight.
>>
>>> Jim
>>
>>
>>> On Sun, Feb 17, 2013 at 1:42 PM, Chris <cdolman at telus.net> wrote:
>>>> Hi Jim
>>>>
>>>> Sorry that link didn't work. Try just:     edu.kde.org/kstars/
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Cheers
>>>>
>>>> Chris
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, 2013-02-17 at 06:10 -0700, Jim Wooddell wrote:
>>>>> Hi all!
>>>>>
>>>>> I am looking for software that will help me ID celestial bodies and
>>>>> calculate the azimuth, Elevation from a location on earth with very
>>>>> good accuracy?
>>>>>
>>>>> Preferably free!
>>>>>
>>>>> Any help would be appreciated.
>>>>>
>>>>> Jim
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Best regards,
>>  Jodie                            mailto:spacerocks at spaceballoon.org
>>






-- 
Best regards,
 Jodie                            mailto:spacerocks at spaceballoon.org