Topic: Cartes du Ciel / Sky Charts is a Free Astronomy program to draw sky charts.

[Software Santa]

Cartes du Ciel / Sky Charts is a Free Astronomy program to draw sky charts.

Cartes du Ciel / Sky Charts

Sky Charts 2.7
November 2001
by Patrick Chevalley

Home page : http://www.astrosurf.com/astropc



This program enables you to draw sky charts, making use of the data in 16 catalogs of stars and nebulae.
In addition the position of planets, asteroids and comets are shown.

The purpose of this program is to prepare different sky maps for a particular observation.
A large number of parameters permit you to choose specifically or automatically which catalogs to use, the colour and dimension of stars and nebulae, the representation of planets, the display of labels and coordinate grids, the superimposition of pictures, the condition of visibility and more.
These features make this celestial atlas more complete than a conventional planetarium.
Please look at the catalog descriptions in the documentation for explanation about the catatogs used and how to obtain other catalogs for use with the program. For most of them you must use a binary version available from the web site.

Documentation


Why freeware?

I originally developed this program for my personal use, because I like to adapt my tools to my needs. In my opinion the functionality of Sky Charts might be of interest to amateur astronomers or students. Therefore I decided to distribute it as freeware. I feel that you should invest your money in buying a good eyepiece rather than to waste it on software!

Terms and conditions

"Sky charts" is a  freeware. You can freely install and use an unlimited number of copies for your personal use or redistribute it freely with the restriction that you must not modify it and that you include all the documentation files.
Any commercial use is, however, prohibited.

For the conditions and citations of the single catalogs, please refer to the original descriptions in the files ".TXT" in the  subdirectory "CAT\".

Thanks

I would like to thank the Centre de Données Astronomiques de Strasbourg as well as the Astronomical Data Center who make accessible valuable astronomical catalogs to any amateur astronomer.

Sky Charts uses catalog extracts provided by these two institutions:
5/50    Bright Star Catalogue 5th Revised Ed.    Hoffleit+ 1991
5/102    SKY2000 - Master Star Catalog Version 2    Sande+ 1998
1/197A    Tycho Input Catalogue Revised version    Egret+ 1992
1/239    The Hipparcos and Tycho Catalogues    ESA 1997
1/259    The Tycho-2 Catalogue    Hog+ 2000
1/220    The HST Guide Star Catalog     Lasker+1992
1/237    The Washington Visual Double Star Catalog    USNO 2000
2/214    General Catalog of Variable Stars    Kholopov+ 1998
2/219    New Catalogue of Suspected Variable Stars Supplement     Kazarovets+ 1998
7/118    NGC 2000.0     Dreyer 1888, Sky Publishing ed. Sinnott1988
7/155    Third Reference Cat. of Bright Galaxies    de Vaucouleurs+1991
7/119    Catalogue of Principal Galaxies    Paturel+ 1999
5/84    Strasbourg-ESO Cat. of Galactic Planetary Nebulae    Acker+1992
7/9    Lynds' Catalogue of Bright Nebulae    Lynds 1965
7/202    Globular Clusters in the Milky Way    Harris 1997
7/92A    Open Cluster Data 5th Edition    Lynga 1987
6/79    Lunar Solution ELP 2000-82B    Chapront-Touze+ 1988
6/87    Planetary Ephemerides     Chapront+ 1996
6/49    Constellation Boundary Data    Davenhall+ 1989

I would also like to mention the US Naval Observatory who kindly supplies the USNO-SA1.0 CD-ROM,  the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams for the elements of comets and asteroids and their permission to distribute these files, and Lowell Observatory for the asteroids elements.

The Saguaro Astronomy Club distributes Database Version 7.1

Michael. G. Christensen produces the FITS table with Uranometria 2000 charts boundaries.

Eclipse Predictions by Fred Espenak, NASA/GSFC

Satellite calculations use QuickSat by Mike McCants,
Iridium flare predictions use Iridflar by Robert Matson
Thanks to both for permission to include their software and data
with this package.

http://www.stargazing.net/astropc/