Update on current work

[pruss]

Just in case anybody is curious what I am up to right now in Palm software, I am working on getting AstroInfo (http://astroinfo.sf.net) reading for 3.2 release. I got an 8" Coulter Odyssey telescope, put setting circles on it, and am going to add code to AstroInfo to calibrate the setting circles.

[PalmSole]

Very cool to see this as an option seeing that Astromist costs around 40usd :p

[STBXXL]

Another interesting software is Planetarium (http://www.aho.ch/pilotplanets/). It has a lot of features.

[pruss]

As far as I know, neither Astronomist nor Planetarium does calculations to calibrate dobsonian setting circles.

[Treo Musketeer]

Alex, get your head out of the stars! J/K I appreciate all your great apps and freeware. I also appreciate your continued commitment to the Palm OS community that seems to be getting smaller all the time (despite a million plus Centros being sold).

[nepacsman]

Alex, get your head out of the stars! J/K I appreciate all your great apps and freeware. I also appreciate your continued commitment to the Palm OS community that seems to be getting smaller all the time (despite a million plus Centros being sold).


I concur. If Pruss worked for Palm, Palm would be number 1 in market share.

[pruss]

Hey, I'm still doing Palm stuff, just that the one Palm app I've spent a fair amount of time is AstroInfo. :-) Last night, I found that M59 wasn't where AstroInfo said it was, and I corrected AstroInfo's Messier catalog. This morning I added a web lookup feature, so if you're out observing with a Treo, you can look up an NGC/M/IC object on seds.org (or a planet on wikipedia), which is quite handy.

[bluefishCFC]

<snip> which is quite handy.


LOL.....master of the under-statement.

Last time I loaded this app onto my Treo, it seemed to be a little unfriendly to non astronomy types. I admit to being a total ignoramus of all things planetary, but I hoped to learn from the app and instead found myself being totally confused.

Perhaps a really handy thing would be an astronomy guide for idiots built in to the application :rolleyes:

Andy

[pruss]

I think of AstroInfo as an observation aid, rather than something for learning astronomy from... But it has some features that anyone can happily use. For instance, if you just want to find a planet like Jupiter (which is really bright right now), you go to the Solar System list, tap on "Jupiter", and it'll show it on the star chart. Or if you want to look up sunrise, sunset, moonrise, moonset, plutorise, plutoset, etc. times, they're all there in the Solar System view. These things are easy to use.

[pruss]

I've released an unofficial RC1 of AstroInfo 3.1, with the official discussion and download links being in this CloudyNights thread: http://tinyurl.com/5ge9m8

[STBXXL]

For some reason the download link provided doesn't work for me. I get stuck with a "Requesting Ticket" notificaiton on MiHD.net. I tried three different browser. Is there any other way to get this update?

Got it! It was not obvious to me where I have to click. :o

[pruss]

For some reason the download link provided doesn't work for me. I get stuck with a "Requesting Ticket" notificaiton on MiHD.net. I tried three different browser. Is there any other way to get this update?

Got it! It was not obvious to me where I have to click. :o

I just posted RC2, using ifile.it, which has a slightly clearer click button. mihd.net didn't underline or blue the link, which made it confusing.