Home
of ASTEROID 4.2, MINOR
PLANET SOFTWARE!
| ALLEGRO GRADIENT EDITOR | A Program to use colourful themes with Allegro |
| SPACE FX | Planetary Animation Frame generator |
| SPACE FX TUTORIAL | A Brief tutorial covering basic parts of SPACE FX |
| ASTEROID (Windows) | Asteroid Finder - Windows (98...XP) version |
| ASTEROID (Linux) | Asteroid Finder - Linux (Fedora) version |
| TELESCOPE and MOUNTING | My 12.5 inch F5 Newtonian with a Split-Ring Mounting |
| TELEScoPIC - Digital Setting Circles | Digital DSC using a PIC 16F628 microcontroller |
| SAC8 CCD CAMERA | My Pictures taken with a Telephoto lens and the SAC8-II CCD Camera |
| SAC8 CCD CAMERA -Page 2 | My Pictures taken with the new Telescope Mounting |
| THE ORIGIN OF LIFE | Musing on the Origin of Life, the Universe and Everything... |
Home
of ASTEROID 4.2, MINOR
PLANET SOFTWARE!
ASTEROID 4.2
is a Linux, and 32bit Windows program to help
locate asteroids in the night sky.
Announcement: Version 4.2, Build 43 is here! Updated calculations for more accurate positions. It has access to all solar system moons (currently about 170) PLUS over 100 asteroid moons as well. There will be a new Solar system explorer page to view the planets/moons/asteroid from ANY position. Here is a sample development screenshot.
Version 4.2 is here in an Alpha release
Build 43 for Linux.
Download
LINUX Version 4.2 Alpha/Beta
release. (NOW)
First,
get the astwin4.zip file
and copy to your asteroid directory. It has all the common files you
need.
The
grab the ast4lin.zip file for the linux executable and INSTALL
instructions.
| Allegro | Asteroid | File Name | Status | Description |
| X | astwin4.zip | 24th July 2011 Common files | (8.6M) data and doc/manual files | |
| X | ast4lin.zip | 24th July 2011 Build 43 | (260k) Linux binary and INSTALL guide | |
| X | allegro-4.2.2-12.fc11.i586.rpm | Allegro graphics Library 4.2.2 | (630k) Allegro for Fedora 11 in rpm format |
Linux Users: Be sure to install the Allegro library version 4.2.2 first (as root). Then unzip the astwin4.zip to a convenient place such as ~/prog/asteroid. Then unzip the ast4lin.zip files in the same directory.
Run ./asteroid
to start the program.
You may have to use "asteroid
800" or
"asteroid 24"
to access higher resolution or
true colour modes.
Build 43 includes a command line option to load up to 400,000 asteroids if
you have the memory and the latest copy of astorb.dat from Lowell
Observatory. Use "asteroid
800 3300000" after you have updated the
database.
Note: This is an Alpha/Beta release! Many functions are incomplete and some menu items are NOT fully working yet. I will update them as I get time. Please be patient. Feedback/wish lists requested..
What does version 4.0 look like??
Sample
screen shot and saved
image showing M104 and several asteroids along with optional UCAC2
stars in the Telescope view (Alternative skin) running Fedora Core 5.
Stars to mag 9.0 from Tycho2, Tycho2 stars to mag 12 (40MB file) and UCAC2 stars to mag 16 (480MB file) available on request, colour coded according to spectrum, thousands of Asteroids from the Lowell observatory database, 1200 deep sky objects plus Sun and Planets.
History (brief).
Alpha 01: 1st Apr 1999; Help is no help! PPM and HIP catalogs,
rough
menu only.
Alpha 02: 1st May 1999; Help now works, Telescope installed. Finder
enabled.
Alpha 03: 9th May 1999; Find the moon, size the moon.
Alpha 04..08 June 1999; Cosmetic changes. Not posted until 08 build
Alpha 08p: 13th July 1999; patch file, 2000 asteroids, names in the
telescope.
Alpha 09p: 3rd March 2000; 3000 asteroids, Stars look like stars in
the telescope.
Alpha 09p: 1st August 2000; Preliminary test release for LINUX
operating system.
Alpha 10: Constellation names/borders. User objects added.
Access to 10,000 MPs in block mode.
Alpha 11: Ephemeris menu working. Place.txt to edit...
Includes CCD list and telescope frame.
Alpha 12: Appulse/Conjunctions between Asteroids and between
asteroids/stars. Neat, includes GOTO.
Alpha 13: Over 700 odd observatories, fixed embarassing ephemeris
glitch. Where will the asteroids be tomorrow?
Alpha 13 patch: Add support for TYCHO2 star catalog.
Alpha 33: Linux files now match the windows version.
Alpha 35: up to 350,000 asteroids...
Build 42 update: Adds 100 asteroid shapes for the solar system simulator based on the DAMIT database.
Build 43 update: Improved Earth calculation gives better asteroid positions.
With extra features, ASTEROID now requires serious horsepower to run. Try a Pentium for quick updates; a 400 MHz is usable, but a little slow.
For further information about my work or the items mentioned above, please email me!
Late Breaking News..
Um.. There
isn't any!
Well, I've made a test
release for Linux systems.
Try it and send me an email with all the problems...
Who am
I?
I am a Professional Electrical
Engineer and sometime
programmer with an interest in animation graphics, raytracing and
astronomy.
I do most of my programming in C and a little asm when necessary. I
have
also used Visual Basic and am currently trying out Linux.
The Fine Print !
This HTML page and all contents, text,
graphics etc,
is the sole property of Anthony M. Hugo MIEAust CPeng, copyright 1999-2011. Permission is hereby granted to copy this material for personal use
or educational use if the teacher isn't looking. Commercial use by
corporate
entities, colourful sporting identities and all you rich folks requires
specific permission from me. So there!
Credits
This HTML page contains images directly or
indirectly
derived from NASA/JPL/Hubble/Telescope/voyager/spacecraft data suitably
modified for use by SPACE FX. If you use such material in your own
creations,
please credit their use in the absence of specific permission.
Xwing.gif derived from scene files at the
POVRay web
site. Asteroid.gif and ship.gif are my fault.
Copyright symbols, logos and abbreviations
are owned
by copyright owners, logo designers and abr. ppl. Whatever happens,
happens. But only sometimes!
I always wondered whether anybody ever
reads the fine
print at the bottom of documents like this. My advise is to use an
electron
microscope. Cheers!
