In astronomy, there is a wide variety of software. In most cases, there are many different versions of software that do a particular thing. The most common reason for this is preference. While I use some of these software titles, I am in no way endorsing one brand over another. All of the software listed here are popular among the amateur astronomer population; in fact, it is common for one person to have several different programs that do about the same thing - the features of one might be missing in another, but that other may excel in something else (if that makes sense). For ease, I will break them down into category. Keep in mind this list is not at all complete. If there is a software that is worth mentioning, please send us the link.
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The ASP has releaced a PDF file of astronomy related apps for the iPhone and Android. View or download the file.
Planetarium Software | Specialty Observing Programs | CCD Software | Robotic Software | Other Software
Software for OS X (Apple) | New! iPhone/iPod/iPad Apps | New! Palm PDA Apps
This type of software is used to map the night sky from any location on the Earth. It most cases, the software below can print our star charts for a night of viewing and will have extensive databases with at least the most popular night sky objects.
- The SkyX by Software Bisque is probably the most popular planetarium software available. I also use version 6 of this software. The benefit of using TheSky is their extensive database, ability to remotely control a computerized telescope, and work seamlessly with their other popular product, CCDSoft. Their website also has a Hot Fix section for up to date software updates (you will have to register).
- The power of TheSky has come to OS X in the form of the new version of TheSky X student edition. TheSky X is now available in the The SkyX Serious Astronomer Edition are available for both OS X and Windows. Windows 7 and 64bit OS's are supported. The previous version, The Sky 6 Professional is still a well respected program that does run on 64bit operating systems but is a Windows only program.
- TheSky Pocket Edition provides access to the virtual sky from your Palm or Pocket PC. For the diehard astronomer, you can download and extended version of the SAO catalog as well.
- A free, open-source software called Stellarium is probably a good place to start.
- Another free planetarium software is Celestia. It runs on Windows, Linux and Mac. This software not only shows you the sky from Earth, but also allows you to 'fly' to other locations and view the sky from there.
- Google Earth is no longer limited to great satellite images of Earth, they have created color images of the space as well. They include Hubble images in places where they belong, and a cool feature is that you can switch the view based on where you live.
- Microsoft Research has put together an educational program that is nothing short of a breakthrough. The World Wide Telescope allows the user access to just about every image taken from just about every space probe there is. Better still, the user can change the view from radio through to x-ray (visible included of course). It's Windows only, its free so download it now.
- Keeping with the freeware theme, the third free bit of software is an up-and-coming simple yet capable sky charting program called Asynx Planetarium.
- Starry Night is a software that uses OpenGL and Quick Time to show a photo realistic night sky. It also provides telescope control. Updates for this software are available at their website, but newer versions allow updates through an application installed with the program.
- An old style DOS type software by Project Pluto called Guide 8 is also a pretty capable Windows based software as well. While it does not have the pizzazz associated with the 'modern' planetariums, it does have what I consider one of the best presentations of nebula. Guide updates are also available on the website.
- A specialized planetarium software called AstroMB is also available. I have no experience with this software, but it boasts a pretty impressive set of features - available for viewing at their website.
- SkyMap is another software title I am not familiar with, but it does seem to have a faithful following.
- Redshift is a program that used to be Macintosh only, and doesn't seem to want to go away. I used it many years ago and found it capable although I have no idea how the newer versions are compared to what is currently available.
- Sky Tools by CapellaSoft is a bit different from other planetarium software as it has an integrated notepad to store observing notes during observation. While I have no personal experience with this software, this also seems to have a faithful following.
- SkyChart III by Southern Stars is a planetarium software that is for both Windows and Macintosh.
- Voyager 4 by Carina Software - a Windows and OS X platform planetarium software, this provides the standard features expected in virtual sky and telescope control.
- Stellaris — A shareware program for the amateur astronomer
- Cartes du Ciel/SkyChart - a planetarium program boasting 16 different catalogs boasting its completeness over other software with the same feature. Supports Windows, Mac and Linux and has a few more catalog add-ons available.
- CyberSky 5 is a run of the mill planetarium program. It offers the standard features in that the night sky can be viewed at any date in time. While not the prettiest program out there, this serves two main purposes: it keeps the price down and speeds up the program. Most new programs use Open GL for that real sky look but comes at the ex pence of computer processor usage, graphics usage and memory usage. I tested this program and found it does what it is supposed to do. It is Windows only program but will run om XP, Vista, and 7 in both 32 bit and 64 bit modes.
- Planetensuche is a free program collection of astronomy software (database, formula collection, simulation, bioastronomy - the genesis of life, quiz and a distance calculator). Mainly Planetensuche engage about exoplanets - therefore the name (Planetensuche = planet search).
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These programs are not full featured planetariums, but specialize in specific objects.
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This will be the longest list as there are many of these types of programs available. I will keep the descriptions short for this list.
- CCDSoft - works in concert with TheSky for full camera and telescope control. Also provides the necessary image reduction, processing and stacking
- Mira Pro and Mira AP - professional level CCD software
- MaxImDL - a popular choice that offers CCD control and processing
- AIP4WIN - a popular choice that is really a book with included software
- Santa Barbara Instrument Groups software page - CCD software updates
- IRIS - a free and capable program for CCD control and processing
- Registar - specialized image stacking program
- RegiStax - free image stacking program, used mostly for planets
- K3CCDTools - provides video image stacking and image processing
- Fits4Win - Windows program to view FITS files
- AstroVideo - specialized video stacking program
- RC-Astro Console - Russell Croman's add-in for enhanced MaxImDL functionality
- SigmaReject - Another Russell Croman plug-in for MaxImDL
- RGB Weight Calculator - Specialized program that assists in determining ideal exposure time for various filtered images
- AstroArt 3.0 - 96bit image processing software
- ImagePlus - image converter and processor, useful for Digital SLR cameras
- Adobe PhotoShop - need I say more? The de-facto standard for the 'digital darkroom'
- Grain Surgery - clean up those messy images
- PixInsight - image enhancement
- NEAT Image - digital filter for noise reduction
- FitsPlug - FITS file plug-in for PhotoShop
- Irfanview - free image reader and basic processing, reads just about everything
- FITS Liberator - a free PhotoShop plugin by the folks from the ESA/ESO and NASA
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This next batch of software specializes in telescope control - either from another room or across the globe.
- TheSky with CCDSoft provide robotic control from a computer nearby.
- Want to improve your telescopes pointing accuracy? T-Point is a software that models your mounts accuracy and uses this model to improve pointing accuracy.
- Orchestrate is a software to automate imaging sessions - so you can get some sleep.
- For those with motorized domes, AutomaDome adds the ability to control the dome as well - moving the dome with the scope as well as opening and closing.
- Users of the Paramount can improve accuracy with PrecisionPEC.
- Have your cake and eat it too - the complete Bisque Observatory Software Suite.
- DC-3 Dreams - full suite of robotic observatory control, software updates available in their support pages
- PoleAlignMax - software to assist your computer control telescope to point to the north
- ASCOM - the communications standard for interface control in astronomy
- CCDWare - a new software company providing a variety of products used to assist in tracking accuracy and automatic control (with links to other software as well), imaging stacking, session planning and CCD inspection.
- SN Finder - This software automates supernova searches, designed by an amateur astronomer for amateur astronomers.
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The following software doesn't really fit in the above categories.
- Aberrator - software to assist in star testing a telescope
- Microsoft Service Packs - a nice website to know, has all current service packs for Microsoft products
- MSDN .Net Updates - for those Visual Studio .Net programmers, this is a valuable resource
- Astro Image Frame Maker - a utility designed to add borders and titles to astro images
- The KDE Education Project has a program called KStars that runs on Linux
- GlobularClusters - it can be very useful to amateur astronomers to better understand the effects of gravity in a star cluster and to make experiments “at home� by changing fundamental parameters such as concentration and diameter of a cluster or mass and velocity of individual stars.
- SpaceEngine - a free space simulation program that lets you explore the universe in three dimensions, from planet Earth to the most distant galaxies. Areas of the known universe are represented using actual astronomical data, while regions uncharted by astronomy are generated procedurally. Millions of galaxies, trillions of stars, countless planets - all available for exploration. You can land any planet, moon or asteroid and watch alien landscapes and celestial phenomena. You can even pilot starships and atmospheric shuttles.
- Starblinker - allows you to easily search for new stars in your astronomical photos written by Marco Lorrai.
- Astromagic - The software allows the user to extract highly accurate astrometric measurements of sources from FITS images. In particular, its capabilities extend to frames exposed with non-sidereal tracking, and to images on which the target detection is elongated or trailed by Dott. David J. Tholen, Gianpaolo Pizzetti and Dr. Marco Micheli.
Software for OS X (Apple):
- The power of TheSky has come to OS X in the form of TheSky X student edition. TheSky X is now available in the Serious Astronomer Edition as well as the Professional Edition - available for both OS X and Windows. What a wonderful thing!
- Seeker by Bisque - a 3D immersive tool for traveling through our Solar System - its available for OS X as well.
- Google Earth is no longer limited to great satellite images of Earth, they have created color images of the space as well. They include Hubble images in places where they belong, and a cool feature is that you can switch the view based on where you live.
- SkyChart III by Southern Stars is a planetarium software that is for both Windows and Macintosh.
- The only Mac OS X only planetarium software is Voyager 4 by Carina Software. While I have not seen it in action, it promises to be a very powerful program that also offers telescope control.
- Cosmographia - A beautiful Solar System simulator for the Mac available from the App Store
- Stark Labs - providers of Nebulosity (CCD control), PHD (guiding), DSLR Shutter control and a few others.
- Microsoft Research has put together an educational program that is nothing short of a breakthrough. The World Wide Telescope allows the user access to just about every image taken from just about every space probe there is. Better still, the user can change the view from radio through to x-ray (visible included of course). The program is Windows only, but Mac users can use the online version for free.
- NRAO Astronomical Image Processing System (AIPS) - process radio images from the NRAO
- IRAF for Macintosh - Maciraf - allowing Mac users to use the absolute standard in professional astronomy
- Spitzer Science Center - Spot and Leopard (tools for planning and archiving)
- ESO's Scisoft - Data Reduction and Analysis
- SAOImage DS9 - FITS viewer
- MIIPS (Multipurpose Interactive Image Processing System) - image display, image analysis, plotting, and function fitting
- AstroGrav - Gravity Simulator
- OSXplanet - Solar System Desktop (real time data)
- LaTeXiT - LaTeX Typesetting Utilities
- SBIG (Santa Barbara Instrument Group) - drivers and software
- Equinox 6 - Planetarium, Telescopes and Camera Control that is geared towards SBIG CCD Cameras
- AstroYacker - Image Stacker
- Macam - Webcam Software
- AstroPlanner - Plan your observations, does logging too
- Astro IIDC - Camera Control for Firewire Cameras
- iAstroPhoto - Digital SLR Camera Control
- Astrostack - Image Stacker
- ESA/ESO/NASA FITS Liberator - PhotoShop plugin
- Lynkeos - Webcam Image Processing
- ScopeDriver - Telescope Control
- Newton's Aquarium - Interactive Visualization of Newton's Law of Gravity
- FITS Liberator - a free PhotoShop plugin by the folks from the ESA/ESO and NASA
- INDI - Open source and free INDI server with easy to use and handsome graphical user interface.
Software for the iPhone/iPod/iPad - otherwise known as Apps:
- SkySafari Pro - planetarium and telescope control, huge database
- Star Walk - a best seller. It's a planetarium, can show you the area you are pointing your device as long as you have GPS, and offers some news and basic Solar System data
- Redshift - planetarium software
- Sky Master - planetarium software
- Solar Walk - from the makers of Star Walk. Solar System simulator
- Gas Giants - by Bisque. A virtual view of Jupiter and Saturn with real-time positions of their major moons
- Solar System -The Photographic Journey - image gallery of objects in our Solar System
- Mars Atlas - a map of Mars
- Moon Atlas - a map of our Moon
- Mercury Atlas - a map of Mercury
- Venus Atlas - a map of Venus
- Jupiter Atlas - a sort of map of Jupiter
- Saturn Atlas - a sort of map of Saturn
- 3D Sun - view 3D images of our Sun and receive alerts of real time Solar data such as sunspot activity and Solar storms
- AstronomyCalc - a calculator for basic conversions, date and time, coordinate conversions and Solar calculations
- Astronomy - a cool app that is an image gallery, lists past, current and future space missions, a history of Astronomy and a list of Stars and Constellations with basic visibility data
- NASA - of course NASA must have an app, and its a list of their missions, image gallery, news and NASA TV
- Go Star Gaze - a part of the Night Sky Network it offers a list of clubs and events, all up to date with updates when the program starts
- Sky View - an app that uses your devices camera to superimpose the constellations. Relies on GPS.
- Cosmic Clock - an app for Julian Date and Swatch Internet Time (beat time)
- APODViewer - view the Astronomy Photo of the Day as well as browse past entries
- Sky Week - by Sky and Telescope shows a list of interesting things to look at for each morning and evening
- Buzz Aldrin - an information packed app of myths and mysteries, the Space Race, exploration of the Moon and Mars and covers the Hubble. You do know who Buzz Aldrin is, right?
- Solar Monitor - an app that displays current Solar 'weather' and offers a forecast of Solar Winds for those who love to watch the Aurora
- Galaxy Zoo - have you heard of the SETI@Home screensaver? In the same vein, this allows the user to view images of very distant galaxies from the Hubble Deep Field (HDF) and assist in identifying galaxy type through a step-by-step category
- Exoplanet - a great app that is a database of known exoplanets. It also graphs out orbital position and distance from host star as well as how the discovery was made
- Kepler - just like Exoplanet with the database of exoplanets, but limits the list to discoveries made by the Kepler probe
- HubbleZoom - An image gallery of Hubble Space Telescope images, though not the best interface
- Gravilux - advertised as a game, this program is interesting as it uses the n-body equations to simulate a galaxy merger
- iCSC - the Clear Sky Chart for IOS
- iNEO - a list of asteroids closest to Earth
- Cosmic - The American Museum of Natural History app displaying a zoomable mosaic of Saturn comprised of hundred's of images
- Nebulae - an image gallery of nebula
- Our Solar System - an image gallery of Solar System images
- GoSkyWatch - planetarium software that uses GPS
- SkyQ - planetarium app by Celestron. Also includes planet rise and set times, Moon phases and the positions of the major moons of Saturn and Jupiter
- Distant Suns 3 - planetarium software with very nice database
- INDI - the mobile control panel for the remote INDI servers for iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad. It offers the same functionality as INDI Control Panel for OS X with iOS look & feel. The only limitation is, that it doesn't support BLOB transfer.
- Cosmic Watch - It's a clock which displays the Sun, Moon and Planets positions and can be used to demonstrate the apparent movements of the sky.
- Planetarium - the name says it all. It provides Sun, Moon and planet data as well as all ther constellations. It's database has 2.5 million stars, the 110 Messier objects, the Caldwell 110, 280 double-stars, the Herschel 400 and an additional 1000 deep space objects. And it has telescope control via serial port. Comets and asteroids are also available on the expandable database.
This list is by no means complete. These just happen to be the apps I use, have used or seen. Roguelike (codemir) mac os. If you know of any that should be listed here, please let me know.
Software for the Palm PDA:
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Learn how to set up Veins.
For quickly trying out Veins and for running Veins on systems you do not have administrative access to, we are recommending Instant Veins, a virtual machine that contains a ready-to-run version of Veins and all supporting tools.
About Instant VeinsIf you are using Instant Veins, you can directly skip ahead to the final step: running Veins.
For learning how to set up Veins on your own machine, read on.
The hard way
Note:Veins runs on Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. Because of the extensive debugging capabilities that it offers, Veins is best built and run on Linux.
For building on Linux, some packages may need to be installed. On Ubuntu Linux, this will likely mean running
to install them.Note that Ubuntu 16.04 no longer includes libproj0; this can be worked around by temporarily adding the packet repository of, e.g., Ubuntu Vivid when installing this package.
On Mac OS X, this will likely mean installing equivalent packages via Macports by running
to install them.
The OMNeT++ install guide has many helpful hints on pre- and post-configuration of your system.
This tutorial assumes that you are using Windows 7, that your home directory is C:Usersuser, and that all necessary software will be installed in C:Usersusersrc (which was already created).Aside from the paths given and the opening of the OMNeT++ MinGW command line window vs. a regular command line window, these steps are similar when building and running the simulations on Linux or Mac OS X.
Step 1: Download SUMO
Download a zip file of the SUMO 1.8.0 binaries and unpack them as C:Usersusersrcsumo-1.8.0. This should give you an executable C:Usersusersrcsumo-1.8.0binsumo.exe. Note that recent versions of the SUMO binaries require the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package (x86) to be installed.
If you want to (or have to) build SUMO manually, detailed instructions for many platforms can be found on the Installation Instructions on the SUMO website.
Note:Make sure you are running the right version of SUMO for your Veins installation. If you are unsure which version of SUMO you are running, the output of sumo --version will tell you. You can get a quick overview of supported SUMO versions from the Veins Changelog.
Step 2: Download and build OMNeT++ 5
Download OMNeT++ 5.6.2 for Windows and unpack it as C:Usersusersrcomnetpp-5.6.2.
Note:If you unpack OMNeT++ to a different folder, make sure it contains no spaces.
This should give you a script
that you can run to open a MinGW command line window, which closely mimics a Linux environment.
Build OMNeT++ 5 by running
(making sure to examine the summary for potential errors) followed by
to start the build process. If all went well, this will result in /c/Users/user/src/omnetpp-5.6.2/bin/omnetpp being built. Run
to launch the OMNeT++ 5 IDE. This tutorial will assume that you picked C:Usersusersrcomnetpp-5.6.2samples as your workspace.
Step 3: Download and build the Veins module framework
Download Veins 5.1 and unpack it as C:Usersusersrcveins-5.1. Import the project into your OMNeT++ IDE workspace by clicking File > Import > General: Existing Projects into Workspace and selecting the directory you unpacked the module framework to.
Build the newly imported project by choosing Project > Build All in the OMNeT++ 5 IDE. After the project built, you are ready to run your first IVC evaluations, but to ease debugging, the next step will ensure that SUMO works as it should.
Step 4: Make sure SUMO is working
In the OMNeT++ MinGW command line window, you should be able to have SUMO simulate an example scenario by changing the current directory to /c/Users/user/src/veins-5.1/examples/veins/ using cd ./veins-5.1/examples/veins and running
Life In The Fast Vein Mac Os Catalina
to start SUMO.You should see a line saying 'Loading configuration.. done.', then - after a short while - with no further output be returned to the command line.
Note:If you used a different path to install SUMO, remember which command you ran instead of /c/Users/user/src/sumo-1.8.0/bin/sumo.exe.You will need to supply this command to the -c option of veins_launchd in the next step.
To get an impression of what the example scenario looks like, you can also run it using sumo-gui.exe, but this is not required for Veins to work.
Example scenario running in the SUMO GUI.
Final step: Run the Veins demo scenario
To save you the trouble of manually running SUMO prior to every OMNeT++ simulation, the Veins module framework comes with a small python script to do that for you. In the OMNeT++ MinGW command line window, start it by running
Note:If you used a different path to install SUMO, remember which command you ran instead of /c/Users/user/src/sumo-1.8.0/bin/sumo.exe in the last step.You will need to supply this command to the -c option of veins_launchd.
This script will proxy TCP connections between OMNeT++ and SUMO, starting a new copy of the SUMO simulation for every OMNeT++ simulation connecting. The script will will print Listening on port 9999 and wait for the simulation to start. Leave this window open and switch back to the OMNeT++ 5 IDE.
Hint:If you don't want to enter the full path to your sumo binary every time you start the launchd, you can also add it to the PATH variable of your mingw environment. To do so, create a file /c/Users/user/src/omnetpp-5.6.2/.profile and add
In the OMNeT++ 5 IDE, simulate the Veins demo scenario by right-clicking on veins-5.1/examples/veins/omnetpp.ini and choosing Run As > OMNeT++ simulation. Don't forget to allow access to SUMO through any personal firewall you might run. Similar to the last example, this should create and start a launch configuration. You can later re-launch this configuration by clicking the green Run button in the OMNeT++ 5 IDE.
If everything worked as intended this will give you a working simulation scenario using OMNeT++ and SUMO running in parallel to simulate a stream of vehicles that gets interrupted by an accident.
If you ran a debug build of the simulation (e.g., by choosing Debug as instead of Run as when launching the simulation by right-clicking on omnetpp.ini and acknowledging the prompt to build the simulation to debug mode), you will see a wealth of debug output in the log window.Note, however, that a simulation running in debug mode executes at lower speed.
If you are interested in seeing the source code of the application running on the simulated vehicles, check the omnetpp.ini option applType(click here to view the Veins 5.1 version online) and you will see it is TraCIDemo11p.Its source code is contained in the file src/veins/modules/application/traci/TraCIDemo11p.cc(click here to view the Veins 5.1 version online).You can see the handlePositionUpdate method, which defines how a vehicle reacts when a position update is received from SUMO: by checking whether it has been standing still for too long and, if it is, sending a broadcast to notify other vehicles about a possible jam on its current road.You can also see the initialize method, which sets (among other things) sentMessage = false for this vehicle when the application starts.The onWSM method of the application defines how it reacts to received data: by calling changeRoute to avoid the road it has received information about -- and (if sentMessage is still false) by scheduling a reminder to re-send this message in a little bit over 2 seconds and setting the sentMessage flag.The handleSelfMsg method defines how it reacts to such reminders: by actually calling sendDown to send the broadcast.
See below for a GUI screencast of the example simulation: information dissemination via flooding while buildings block transmissions.
To view this video download it as .mp4 (avc1.640028), download it as .webm (vp8), download it as .ogg (theora), or upgrade your browser.New Projects
While we recommend simply modifying the tutorial simulation to get started with using Veins, pretty soon you might want to create a dedicated OMNeT++ project.To create this project, we recommend using cookiecutter-veins-project, which is a Cookiecutter template.Open a command line window, install Cookiecutter according to its manual, then execute cookiecutter gh:veins/cookiecutter-veins-project. This will download the Cookiecutter template and ask you some questions, e.g., the project name and which additional module libraries you want the project to use (for which you can safetly select the default answer by pressing the Enter key).It will then download the current version of Veins and create a new OMNeT++ project that is using Veins.
Batch execution
If you are planning to run a lot of Veins simulations on a lot of machines, you might be interested in projects runmaker and singularity-veins.
Project singularity-veins
Many of the largest High Performance Computing (HPC) centers are already offering Singularity support, but the software is also straightforward to download and install on a personal machine.You can then simply execute a command like..
..to configure (similarly: to build and to run) a Veins simulation in a lightweight high performance container.This container already has OMNeT++ and SUMO installed (check the tag of the container to see which versions) and can take care of keeping a dedicated, isolated instance of veins_launchd running while the simulation executes.
More information is available in the singularity-veins documentation.
For use on a personal machine, you might also be interested in docker-veins, a similar solution for Docker.
Project runmaker
After you downloaded and installed runmaker, you can simply create a text file, e.g. runs.txt that contains a list of commands to execute (prefixed by a dot and a space, see its documentation).
Given a shared filesystem or networked machines, you can then simply run an arbitrary number of runmaker instances, e.g. as runmaker4.py -j2 runs.txt, which will take care of picking and executing jobs from this list on each of the machines they are being run on.More information is available in the runmaker documentation.
End
Life In The Fast Vein Mac Os Download
This concludes the mini-tutorial. In-depth information on how to use Veins is available in the documentation, with answers to the most common questions in the list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ).
