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Astronomy Programs

Satscape

Satscape produces real-time displays of where any Satellite is, and predicts passes for your locale. There are about 8000+ satellites in orbit, a lot of these are just junk and debris such as discarded rocket bodies, but quite a few are working Satellites. Their positions can be calculated very accurately using pure maths, no need for a huge radar dish in your back garden. Satscape will do the maths for you, and present their positions in a nice graphical way. Passes over your part of the world can be predicted weeks in advance in a matter of seconds.
Program Status: Freeware
Operating Systems: Windows
Software Version: 2.02
File Size: 6 MB
Date Added: 06-14-2006
Download: You need to visit the author's web site to download

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Moonphase

Moonphase 2.0 - displays the current moon phase of current day as an icon in the Activity field. You can change time zone, latitude and longitude (you can also click on the map!) to get a more accurate moon rise and set times and also the sun rise and sun set. A little bonus: If you like to fish, mark the 'Show good fish days' option (fishing calendar, derived from 'the anglers Almanac').
There is also a Southern Hemisphere version.
Program Status: Freeware
Operating Systems: Windows
Software Version: 2.0
File Size: 1.23 MB
Date Added: 06-12-2006
Download: You need to visit the author's web site to download

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3D Solar System

A rolling advanced 3D solar system with all the planets and some big moons orbit. If you have a very fast computer - set 'True Worlds'-option 'On', and you will not be disappointed. You can manually select view of planet or moon and the camera takes you there. It includes options like 'Freeze All', 'Height of view', 'Orbit speed / Distance', 'Light and Shadow on/off', 'Atmosphere on/off', 'Rotation speed', 'Bank Angle', 'Model scale' and 'Zoom scale'. Support 800x600 up to 1600x1200 GFX resolution. You can also save the preferences.
Program Status: Freeware
Operating Systems: Windows
Software Version: 3.8
File Size: 21.6 MB
Date Added: 06-12-2006
Download: You need to visit the author's web site to download

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Celestia - Space Simulation

Celestia is a free space simulation that lets you explore our universe in three dimensions. Unlike most planetarium software, Celestia doesn't confine you to the surface of the Earth. You can travel throughout the solar system, to any of over 100,000 stars, or even beyond the galaxy. All movement in Celestia is seamless; the exponential zoom feature lets you explore space across a huge range of scales, from galaxy clusters down to spacecraft only a few meters across. A 'point-and-goto' interface makes it simple to navigate through the universe to the object you want to visit. Celestia is expandable. It comes with a large catalog of stars, galaxies, planets, moons, asteroids, comets, and spacecraft. If that's not enough, you can download dozens of easy to install add-ons with more objects.
Program Status: Freeware
Operating Systems: Windows, Mac OSX, Linux
Software Version: 1.4.1
File Size: 13.9 MB
Date Added: 06-12-2006
Download: You need to visit the author's web site to download

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