Useful astronomy links
Latest additions: June 30, 2008. New items marked with 
Sometimes, it seems that finding astronomical data, software, and utilities online is like drinking from a fire hose -- there's just so much out there, much of it free. I've made an effort to put together a list of links, downloadable software, and online utilities that I've found useful. Mostly so I'll know where they are and don't have to search for them elsewhere.
Observing
Clear Dark Sky Clock -- find out what the weather for your observing site will be like. Most important, it provides a prediction of seeing -- how badly the atmosphere is blurring star images.
- My local Clear Dark Sky clock
Jet Stream map from Weather Underground -- generally, high speeds = bad seeing.
General telescope utilities
Ron Wodaski's free CCDCalc utility for determining fields of view of any telescope/camera combination. Also displays framing of specific deep-sky objects.
Aberrator -- a program that simulates star test images. Free. From Cor Berrevoets in Belgium.
Metaguide -- cleans up distorted Airy disks in real time, even when seeing is bad, to enable collimation with a webcam. Free.
Roddier -- a program to help evaluate quality of optics using a very sophisticaed star test, inside and outside focus. Example of what it does.
- download the program
- Explanation (in French)
- Yahoo newsgroup (in English; you'll have to join to use the group)
- Cookbook on how to run the French software ("I don't know what I'm doing but I know what buttons to push")
PHD autoguiding -- free autoguiding software
GuideDog software -- autoguiding software for webcams
Televue TVFocus software. With this free software, the correct electronic digital indicator (Swiss quality and very much not free), the correct interface cable (seems very expensive but it has an optocoupler, not just dumb copper wires), and an available serial port on your computer, you can have a remote focus position readout. You may have to cobble together some hardware to adapt it to your telescope.
WCS Scheinern -- a program by Wolfgang Ruthner in Austria. This program semi-automates the process of polar drift alignment; you tell it your scope focal length and camera, it looks at star image drift in specific parts of the sky and puts a "target" on the monitor screen. You crank the equatorial wedge adjustment screws to bring the star to the target, and check again for drift. There are actually several versions, one for webcams, one for Meade DSIs, one for ImagingSource cameras.
Meade telescope utilities
Download site for Meade Autostar Suite updates
Download site for Meade Envisage (DSI camera control software) updates
Meade Autostar Update client application (software used to load new firmware into Meade Autostar telescopes)
- Alternative to, some say better than, Meade ASU: Starpatch
- Download latest Meade Autostar II telescope firmware
- Dick Seymour's Autostar patches (add / modify certain useful features) See also here.
Andrew Johansen's "Myscope" telescope PEC (periodic error) and scope settings editor utility. VERY useful and free!
Meade telescope tech info
Got problems with your Meade scope and Meade's customer service isn't helping? Won't sell you parts? Slow service / no service / bad service? Rebate check missing? Here's who to contact in government to file a complaint and get action (not just for Californians, either).
Do you get lost in the Meade Autostar II menu? Go here and copy the image file of the entire menu tree. You can resize this as needed, print it out, and laminate it or put it in a sheet protector to use at the telescope.
Lots of tech info at MAPUG -- the old Meade Advanced Products User Group, started with the LX200 Classic. Some GPS info.
The Files section at the Yahoo LX200GPS newsgroup has lots of schematics etc.
MeadeLX200GPScom (that's not its real URL) has tons of tech info. Also "back issues" of firmware in case you need/want to go back to an earlier version because of certain new bugs or whatever.
Imaging utilities
Deep Sky Stacker -- free software to process light, dark, flat, flat-dark, different color channel, etc. astro image frames.
Also there's Deep Sky Stacker Live -- completely different program does rudimentary processing "on the fly" for the impatient.
Nebulosity -- handicapped trial version. Unlocked version not free but well priced, excellent astro image processing software. From Craig Stark at Stark Labs.
DSI II Cross -- on-screen crosshairs for DSI II. There used to be a DSI 1 Cross but the writer appears to have taken it down.
K3CCDTools -- outstanding software to control Philips 740K, 840K, and SPC900 webcams, along with others. Not free after 30 day trial but highly recommended.. Combined with Registax (below) and a cheap webcam, you can have hundreds of hours of fun imaging brighter solar system objects. Also recommended: get free WcCtrl (below, free) to go with this.
wxAstrocapture -- Free webcam control and capture software for Windows, Linux. New, seems to have bugs for some operating systems.
Registax -- Free software to help stack astro images. Another fine item from Cor Berrevoets, in Belgium. Handles webcam AVIs, also still camera FITS, JPG, TIFF, etc.
Matt Taylor's Imagers Toolkit
QCamLog -- utility that logs webcam settings to a file
QCFocus -- webcam focusing utility
WcCtrl -- similar purpose as QCamLog, above.
WcRmac -- software "raw" mod for Philips webcams
Avi2Bmp
Blind astrometry. What is blind astrometry? You feed it a photo of stars, without any other info, and it spits back what it was, possibly when it was. Explanation here. And here.
- Astrometry.net is a blind astronometry solver currently in "alpha" testing. Works on everything but Windows.
WinJUPOS -- a utility that lets you find the planetary coordinates of features. Works for all planets, Sun, Moon; especially useful for Mars, Jupiter, Moon.
Imaging guides / educational / tutorial materials
Matt Taylor's DSI tutorial DVD videos
Meade's own DSI tutorials, presented by Matt Taylor.
Jerry Lodriguss' Photoshop for Astrophotographers book-on-CD-ROM
Ron Wodaski's New CCD Astronomy print book and online resources
Photoshop Astronomy by R. Scott Ireland
Handbook of Astronomical Image Processing by Berry and Burnell. The Bible for amateurs. Includes powerful software package, AIP4WIN 2.0 (with online upgrade, now up to V2.2).
Solar system data
JPL Small-Body Database Browser
- Example: somewhere there's an asteroid with my name on it.
List of minor planet names; maybe there's one with your name on it.
Calsky highly detailed computer-generated views of solar system and deep-space objects. Introduction and personalized setup. Can be set to automatically e-mail alerts for specific events.
Spaceweather has lots of useful info, including snapshot of current sunspots, and list of current near-earth asteroids.
Satellites
Heavens Above. "Register" your location to get personal satellite pass predictions. Free. You can also sign up to get automatic e-mail alerts for various events (auroras, satellites passing across Sun or Moon, etc).
Celestrak Space Track Retriever lets you download fresh orbital data for satellites, to use in skycharting programs
To use that, you'll need to sign up with Space Track for a free user account.
Being the Air Force, they don't want you to get the orbital elements for "classified" satellites. No problem; the Internet leaks like a sieve and you can get them here.
The old Satscape, version 2.0.2. There is a new Java-based, all-things-to-all-operating-systems version, but it's horribly buggy. Avoid the Java. (General Satscape page). Again, for this program, you should set yourself up to get fresh Space Track satellite elements, see above.
Heavensat is a Russian satellite tracking program, looks good, good English interface. Doesn't come with extensive documentation but a little exploring, some cutting and pasting of TLE files into the appropriate (well labeled) folder, and it's good to go. Gives quick, excellent overview of what's up, when; then one can use Cartes du Ciel (see section Sky Charting Software) or Satellite Tracker (this section, below) to home in on the target. Free.
Tons of satellite software links
Another page of satellite software links
Idsat download link -- "IDSat assists in the identification of observed satellites, by computing and tabulating close appulses of known satellites relative to the observed time and position. It is conceptually similar to Mike McCants' Findsat program, but provides additional information, and includes various convenience features.
ISS Simulator -- shows how the ISS looks as it's passing over your location. (Now -- early 2008 -- hopelessly out of date).
Brent Boshart's Satellite Tracker. Outstanding software but as of March 14, 2008, Brent has announced that he will no longer be supporting this program. Former website was heavenscape.com . It used to be, you could download the trial version, good for 20 trials, and then pay something like $30 for the unlocked version. The Yahoo support forum for this forum may or may not go away. For now, at this writing, Brent has turned the program loose, and a completely unlocked version 2.4.8 is available for download in the Files section of that group. However, he says other parties are showing interested in the program, and if he sells it to them, they may pull the plug on "free". So get it if you can, while you can. Here are Internet Wayback Machine archived screen shots of Boshart's page before he took it down.
Time, sidereal time, and time setting utilities
Setting your computer clock accurately, to better than one second, is important for many astronomical applications -- for example, satellite tracking. Computer clocks are not intended to be accurate timekeepers, and typically drift as much as several seconds per day.
Astronomer's Digital Clock displays local and Greenwich time and sidereal time. CAUTION: this program is 6 years old and does not correctly handle the new Daylight Savings Time rules for USA. You may need to shift on time zone in either direction until the calendar catches up.
Sunclock -- free "World Map" or Geochron type of display, showing sunrise and sunset lines, local times, subsolar and sublunar points, etc.
Sky charting software
Cartes du Ciel -- outstanding free software with lots of optional catalogs and plug-ins.
- Best bet: go to download page and get Complete package 2.76 and then add the Version 2.76c update
- If you have lots of disk space, get the Hubble Guide Star package which will go down to ~ mag. 15
- Cookbook instructions for how to install the HSC. I didn't have any luck with Winzip, as Winzip needs some special settings set and my ancient version doesn't have that, so I used ZipGenius 6.
- There is a Version 3 but it's still in beta.
Palomar Digitized Sky Survey from Space Telescope Science Institute. Enter object coordinates and field size, it returns a view of that object. Handy for checking framing of images, finding faint background stars for tracking satellites / asteroids, etc.
Sky-Map.org sky charts on the Web; goes down to mag. 19 or so.
Aladin sky atlas -- online atlas from the Strasbourg Astronomical Data Center
Vizier -- astronomical catalog browser from the Strasbourg Astronomical Data Center
Simbad -- astronomical database (literature citations) from the Strasbourg Astronomical Data Center
Sky & Telescope Magazine index search
- Several different download versions, from "Light" to "Pro." Free.
Wondering what to look at on the Moon? Here's the Lunar 100. (S&T references are out of date, the series is now complete)
Mars Previewer II shows you which Martian features are facing us at any given time. Download here. Free.
Calsky highly detailed computer-generated views of solar system and deep-space objects. Introduction and personalized setup. Free.
The old JupSat 95 viewer. Free.
Sky & Telescope has a Javascript applet that shows the configuration of Jupiter's moons.
And another for Great Red Spot transits.
Sky & Telescope's Javascript utility for finding Saturn's moons
