I need to complete some questions for my astronomy class. I need a solid, free program, without spyware.
thanks a ton.
2007-05-25 17:01:24 · 8 answers · asked by Iceberg22 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
You're going to need coordinates for the area of the sky, in right ascention and declination.
You can start with the Digitized Sky Survey here:
http://archive.stsci.edu/cgi-bin/dss_form
It will give you a picture (be sure to change the file format from FITS to GIF) of that region of the sky.
You can get the coordinates of all the stars and their magnitudes from the USNO catalog here:
http://www.nofs.navy.mil/data/fchpix/
You can find other info about individual stars on SIMBAD:
http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/
And if you want to combine them all, download a copy of DS9 from the SAO/Harvard website. Just google ds9, the link isn't working right now.
It's a free program that will download the images and catalogs for you for a region of the sky. It's put out by the Harvard astronomy dept. These are the tools astronomers use every day.
2007-05-25 17:18:35 · answer #1 · answered by eri 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
SKYGLOBE is an amazing piece of freeware/shareware. It shows the planets and sun's position in real time, as well as many Messier objects on a backdrop of labelled constellations and major stars. There are lots of user-friendly controls and the app requires very little resources.
2007-05-25 17:25:37 · answer #2 · answered by screaming monk 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Cartes Du Ciel is probably the most complete and accurate of the free programs, though I'm partial to Starry Night myself, though it's not free:
http://www.stargazing.net/astropc/
http://www.starrynight.com
2007-05-26 01:38:33 · answer #3 · answered by GeoffG 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
you can also try 'celestia', which is like a 3D simulation of space, and it gives you the name and even some information if you click on various celestial objects, not just stars. Just go to google and type "celestia" and you will be able to take it from there.
2007-05-25 20:23:17 · answer #4 · answered by Hale2bopp 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Try Cartes du Ciel: http://www.stargazing.net/astropc/
2007-05-25 17:20:44 · answer #5 · answered by injanier 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
i concur celestria hands down. get the sloan digital sky survey data and have a ball.
there are many add ons for it its awesome!
2007-05-25 22:00:31 · answer #6 · answered by noneya b 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
www. astronomy. com
2007-05-25 17:09:36 · answer #7 · answered by the_silverfoxx 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
this program might work.
http://edu.kde.org/kstars/
assuming you use linux. if you are you using ubuntu just sudo aptitude install kstars
but i doubt you have linux lol
2007-05-25 17:21:24 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋