Astronomy Programs

What Astronomy program would you recommend that can be used, for instance,
to predict the time of rising of Venus in Hawaii exactly 2 years from now or
the true ecliptic longitude and geocentric distance of the Sun at any given
instance? I think in college Astronomy courses you would have to write your
own program. In that case which program would you recommend? May have to be
under Linux OS, from what I am reading. I know that 20 years ago most
computations were written in Basic (my speed). What are they using now? All
comments are welcomed and thanks.

Cordially,
west

Stellarium rocks!! www.stellarium.org it's free, open source and linx,
windoze and mac version are available

--
Damian Burrin
UKRA 1159 Level 2 RSO
EARS 1115
http://www.ukrocketry.com
http://www.larf-rocketry.co.uk

LARF - Putting the amateur back in rocketry!!

"west" wrote in message
news:0vlih.3850$Jb6.2078@trnddc03...
What Astronomy program would you recommend that can be used, for instance,
to predict the time of rising of Venus in Hawaii exactly 2 years from now
or
the true ecliptic longitude and geocentric distance of the Sun at any
given
instance? I think in college Astronomy courses you would have to write
your
own program. In that case which program would you recommend? May have to
be
under Linux OS, from what I am reading. I know that 20 years ago most
computations were written in Basic (my speed). What are they using now?
All
comments are welcomed and thanks.

Cordially,
west

On Thu, 21 Dec 2006 01:32:44 GMT, in uk.sci.astronomy , "west"
wrote:

What Astronomy program would you recommend that can be used, for instance,
to predict the time of rising of Venus in Hawaii exactly 2 years from now or
the true ecliptic longitude and geocentric distance of the Sun at any given
instance?

Fairly sure StarryNight can do this.

own program. In that case which program would you recommend? May have to be
under Linux OS,

StarryNight runs under Wine, I think.
--
Mark McIntyre

On or about 2006-12-21,
west illuminated us with:
What Astronomy program would you recommend that can be used, for instance,
to predict the time of rising of Venus in Hawaii exactly 2 years from now or
the true ecliptic longitude and geocentric distance of the Sun at any given
instance? I think in college Astronomy courses you would have to write your
own program. In that case which program would you recommend? May have to be
under Linux OS, from what I am reading. I know that 20 years ago most
computations were written in Basic (my speed). What are they using now? All
comments are welcomed and thanks.

I haven't used it a lot so I can't be sure whether it does everything
you ask, but I've always been impressed with kstars (Linux only).

--
Mark
Real email address | If at first you don't succeed,
is mark at | destroy all evidence that you tried.
ayliffe dot org |

On Thu, 21 Dec 2006 01:32:44 +0000, west wrote:

What Astronomy program would you recommend that can be used, for instance,
to predict the time of rising of Venus in Hawaii exactly 2 years from now or
the true ecliptic longitude and geocentric distance of the Sun at any given
instance?

Xephem tells me Venus rises at 09:59 HST at Mauna Kea on 22nd Dec 2008, but if
you are planning to be on the beach you'll have to reset the altitude. Xephem
is not the flashiest Linux/Unix program but it's reckoned to be the most
comprehensive. http://www.clearskyinstitute.com/xephem/


Mike