Linux Astro Pgms: XSTARS & XEPHEM

fledermaus wrote:

XEPHEM is an excellent program, free if you compile it yourself and use
a very limited star catalog.

XSTARS is something I found recently by accident, it was on the KNOPPIX
distribution (which can run on any PC without Linux installed. KNOPPIX
Linux boots from a cdrom which is free). XSTARS is also on other Linux
distributions but under KDE windows (as opposed to GNOME windows). You
have to select the education package for KDE to get it.

For those who don't use Linux, the KNOPPIX Linux is good way to learn it
and it has XSTARS to boot.

(in my windows environment, I have Project Pluto which is great,
although since I rarely use windows I hardly ever use it)

Did you know that Guide works almost perfectly under Wine? A few things give
it problems, but it is very usable, certainly more userfriendly than Xephem
(which is also pretty good).

Bart

Bart Declercq wrote:
fledermaus wrote:


XEPHEM is an excellent program, free if you compile it yourself and use
a very limited star catalog.

XSTARS is something I found recently by accident, it was on the KNOPPIX
distribution (which can run on any PC without Linux installed. KNOPPIX
Linux boots from a cdrom which is free). XSTARS is also on other Linux
distributions but under KDE windows (as opposed to GNOME windows). You
have to select the education package for KDE to get it.

Kstars promises to be interesting too.

Steve

Kstars promises to be interesting too.

Hi:

It would be if the developer would continue with it. As is, it doesn't have
enough stars or deep sky objects to make it really useful. I was excited about
XEphem for a while, but eventually had to admit that the Win freeware program
Cartes du Ciel is really considerably more useful and user friendly. :-(


Peace,
Rod Mollise
Author of _Choosing and Using a Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope_
Like SCTs and MCTs?
Check-out sct-user, the mailing list for CAT fanciers!
Goto http://members.aol.com/RMOLLISE/index.html

(Rod Mollise) writes:


Kstars promises to be interesting too.

Hi:

It would be if the developer would continue with it. As is, it doesn't have
enough stars or deep sky objects to make it really useful. I was excited about
XEphem for a while, but eventually had to admit that the Win freeware program
Cartes du Ciel is really considerably more useful and user friendly. :-(


Just out of curiosity (and NOT to start a war) what is it that you
consider to be more user friendly about CDC as opposed to XEphem?
Personally I keep going back to XEphem everytime I try something else.
It is quicker and seems a bit more flexible. I love the solver and
plotter! Also, satellites are handled much more easliy in XEphem. If I
had to complain at all it would be that I wish it used bitmap stars and
real images for planets like CDC but other than eye candy, I just don't
see the advantages of CDC over XEphem. I am mainly comparing to the
windows version of CDC but I am also toying with the alpha Linux
version.

Kstars is pretty slick as well but like you said, it is a little slim on
the catalog side. For the not-so-serious user it is quite cool, though.
The cvs version now has telescope control via INDI and many
improvements/fixes over the last stable release. I suspect that in
about six months it will be quite a worthy adversary to other software
like it.

Still, I keep going back to XEphem. I suppose I actually should suck it
up and pay for it. I will just as soon as v3.6 is released. It
promises to include a lot of great improvements and additions.

Best,
-Al A.

--
~/.signature

Just out of curiosity (and NOT to start a war) what is it that you
consider to be more user friendly about CDC as opposed to XEphem?

Hi:

Some of the things I find advantageous about CdC:

I much prefer the "drag box to zoom" metaphor of CdC. Rather than the
drag/click tool of XEphem.

I like the integration with DS2003, and the ability to use its compact GSC.

I prefer the initial sky display of CdC.

I like the ability to easily superimpose images on the charts, including my own
images, of CdC.

I prefer the bitmapped screen most of the time.

I could go on.

Don't get me wrong. XEphem is a good program. No, really good. But it is not
better than the Win alternative, and not enough for me to partition off drive
space for Linux.

Peace,
Rod Mollise
Author of _Choosing and Using a Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope_
Like SCTs and MCTs?
Check-out sct-user, the mailing list for CAT fanciers!
Goto http://members.aol.com/RMOLLISE/index.html

In article ,
said...


I could go on.

Don't get me wrong. XEphem is a good program. No, really good. But it is not
better than the Win alternative, and not enough for me to partition off drive
space for Linux.

I think one primary difference between XEphem and many of the others is
that many of the others are planetariums at heart that happen to do other
things, while XEphem is a superb astronomical data cruncher that happens
to offer planetarium-like features in addition to myriad other
capabilities (not even yet fully explored by me). It's very Unix-like in
that regard : Provide all the tools that are needed and let the user put
them together via different techniques to achieve all kinds of results.
Many of the other programs are (often) more "canned" in that one click
does it all, but that's sometimes all it does, to a degree.

I guess it's kind of like : Which is more "powerful"? A) A Jim Walter
kit-home, or B) a collection of tools, books and Home Depot? It depends
on how you define powerful - Doing what's sufficient with the least
effort or offering the most capabilities to those who are willing to
expend the effort? I tend toward the latter, but that's just me...

I really like XEphem - I bought it and will probably upgrade to 3.6, once
I get my seriously broken Red Hat 9 installation fixed... or replaced by
something less proprietary (and less broken by design, but that's a
whole other issue :-). However, I still have a need for a finder chart
creator, complete with pretty-printer capabilities. I seem to recall
Elwood saying that printing was going to generally move up in the pecking
order (at at least, in priority to improve), but printing is just not
(yet?) the forte of XEphem. As a result, I end up using XEphem AND (xyz),
typically Megastar, although I've devoted a bit more effort lately
specifically to exploring CDC. Consequently, my opinion of it has risen a
bit. I still find Megastar's handling of catalog data a bit smoother. It
seems easier to change settings on the fly in Megastar, whereas there's a
little more digging required in CDC. However, that's pretty subjective,
just based on feel. ...but then again, there's that price difference...
g Plus Megastar 5 was a serious upgrade from 4. I really like the
double and quad chart options.

As far as developer support to end-users, I can't speak highly enough of
both Elwood and Emil - They're both extremely responsive and open to
ideas. The same is probably true for Patrick and many others, but I've
just not dealt with them, I guess.

--

-- Len Philpot - --
------ ----- http://philpot.org/ --

In article ,
Rod Mollise wrote:

Don't get me wrong. XEphem is a good program. No, really good. But it
is not better than the Win alternative, and not enough for me to
partition off drive space for Linux.

There are ways around that problem:

1. Get a second harddisk and dedicate it (or part of it) to Linux.
Harddisks are cheap nowadays.

2. Install CygWin in your Windows computer and build XEphem on
CygWin. CygWin is a "shell" on top of Windows which emulates
UNIX fairly well; however it's not binary compatible with e.g.
Linux so binaries must be built for CygWin. CygWin comes with
gcc plus all the usual Unix tools. There is X-Windows and a
Motif clone for CygWin too.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Schlyter, Grev Turegatan 40, SE-114 38 Stockholm, SWEDEN
e-mail: pausch at stockholm dot bostream dot se
WWW: http://www.stjarnhimlen.se/
http://home.tiscali.se/pausch/

Note it should be KSTARS, not XSTARS

I use both of these simply as planetariums, and for this they are
excellent.

One problem with KSTARS is that it requires so many other files to work,
KDE. I have a similar problem with GNUMERIC which requires lots of
GNOME files. Lately I changed my desktop from GNOME/KDE to ICEWM:
faster and I have more control.

As far as GUIDE, it is great, I have the latest, but do not generally
use Gate's abortions. The pgm runs with wine, but wine is awkward and
has problems.

I live in a megopolis where the milkyway no longer appears, so it is
nice to have a planetarium on the computer, at least I can see stars
there. (Even on cruises it is not easy to see the stars due to light
polution on the ships - thus not worthwile dragging much more than
binoculars on vacations)

I recently gave my Celestron8 away; the 6"refl I ground and built 50
years ago has been unused for some 30 years in my attic. However I will
shortly buy a small refractor or/and better and smaller binoculars -
even my 20x80 gets little use.