Astronomy: Software: Toolkits and Observing Utilities

[shareware - Win95/98/NT] Deepsky 99 solves an important need for amateur and professional observers. The software allows the user to plan a productive observing session and record what was observed quickly and easily.

[commercial - multiplatform] This CD contains three Jet Propulsion Laboratory Planetary and Lunar Ephemerides along with a toolbox of FORTRAN subroutines that allow the user to obtain the coordinates of the Sun, Moon, and nine major planets.

[commercial - Win95/98/NT/2000] Advanced auroral activity monitoring software.

[commercial, demo available - Win95/98/NT] Astronomical Observation Suite - Astronomical observation and logging software.

Windows program which creates sundials and calendars, see the dates and names of the year's moons, and calculate Easter.

[commercial - DOS, Macintosh] A software system that provides high-precision astronomical data in tabular form for a wide variety of objects; it calculates much of the information tabulated in the benchmark annual publication, The Astronomical Almanac, but it goes beyond traditional almanacs by enabling you to calculate data for specified locations at specified times within a fifteen year interval (1990-2005).

[commercial, demo available - Win95/98/NT] A comprehensive tool for displaying a variety of information on the Moon and aspects of its behaviour.

[commercial & freeware - multiplatform] Interactive Java applets display the position, daily and annual path of the sun and the moon, for any time and location.

[opensource - POSIX] There is a sky. There are things in the sky. This program draws maps of things in the sky.

[Windows] A desktop application that displays the times of the various phases of the moon and a picture of the current phase of the moon.

[commercial & freeware - Windows] A library of functions for calculating key solar parameters for solar design including sundials.

[commercial - Windows] A tool for recording observations and planning future observing sessions. Allows tracking of progress on common amateur observing programs (Messier, Herschel).

Excel spreadsheet calculates temporal variation in astronomic constants, obliquity of the ecliptic, and illumination angles at any specified latitude. You need only input a date or the latitude.

Freeware for handheld computers to help find and track objects of the night sky.

[freeware - Linux] Command-line program to automate reduction of variable star CCD images.