Astronomy: Software: Toolkits and Observing Utilities

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

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

C88 provides detailed informations about the celestial sphere objects, visible with naked eyes and for the use of an eyepiece of a modest amateur telescope to observe deep sky objects.

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

[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.

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.

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

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

[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.