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Pocket Stars PC is a high accuracy ephemeris, star finder, and celestial
navigation tool for the desktop PCs, tablet PCs and notebook PCs. |
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Pocket
Stars PC
Features
Screen Shots
Movie
Try / Buy |
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Click here to watch
a demo movie. |
Star Chart
Features
- User interface optimized for simple and fast
star, planet, Messier, and Caldwell object identification. Single click
on any body to get the name, designation, calculated altitude,
azimuth, and magnitude. Drag the cursor to scroll the
chart. Zoom in and out with a single click.
- Display of orbital paths for inner solar system
bodies showing daily positions for one year centered on current
date.
- Animation of the sky in increments of hours,
days, weeks, or months.
- Manual or automatic control of star magnitudes.
Simple control over which objects to display.
- Black, white, and red star chart colors for
normal, bright, and night viewing conditions, respectively.
- Chart can be rotated to any of the 16 compass
points and also flipped along the North - South axis. This
allows the either overhead (East and West reversed) or
non-overhead (East and West normal) viewing.
- Polar grid with hour angle and declination
labels.
- Zenith grid.
- Search and scroll to constellation, body, star,
or Messier / Caldwell objects.
- User location set by clicking on map, city
selection, or by entering Latitude and Longitude.
- Chart can be "live, realtime",
animated, or static for
any user selected time.
- Core positional calculation routines based on "Novas" (Naval
Observatory Vector Astrometry Subroutines Version 2.0.1).
- Star data is from the Bright Star Catalog (5th Revised
Edition), comprising
the 9110 brightest stars using J2000 equatorial positions and
the International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF).
Corrections are performed for proper motions and parallax.
- Planet ephemeris data from Jet Propulsion Laboratory using
the DE405 database. DE405 is JPL's latest
planetary ephemeris with correction for both nutations and
librations. DE405 uses the J2000 International Celestial
Reference Frame (ICRF). The portion of this database
provided with Pocket Stars covers the years CE 2000 to CE
2020. Other ephemeris date ranges are available for
download here.
Celestial Navigation Features
- Reduction from sextant altitude to observed
altitude for any
of the 9110 stars, nine planets, and sun and moon. Watch
this movie to
see how it's done.
- Corrections for observer height (DIP),
refraction (temperature and atmospheric pressure), and vessel
movement.
- Position from intercept and azimuth by
calculation for multiple sextant observations following
procedures in "The Nautical Almanac" by the United States Naval
Observatory.
- Any number of sextant observations can be
individually enabled to compute a best fit when computing a FIX.
Results may be plotted, showing the assumed position (AP), FIX,
and observations with intercepts and amplitudes. 95%
confidence ellipse shows the boundaries of the Most Probable
Position.
- Intermediate calculations for each observation
can be displayed, with selectable formats (DD.dddd, DD MM.mm,
DD MM SS) for degrees, minutes, seconds.
Other Features
- Rise, set, and meridian times for all solar
system bodies.
- Lunar Phase calendar and animation showing the
relative positions of the earth, moon, and sun.
- Images and physical data for planets, moon and
sun. Optional display of all 110 Messier objects through
separate free download.
- Calculators for Great Circle Distances, Range
and Bearing, Horizon Distances, Julian Day, and degree minute
seconds conversions.
- Print star charts.
- Transfer configuration files to and from a
connected Pocket PC running Pocket Stars PDA.
More Pocket
Stars PC Screen Shots
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