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Skychart 3.6 AKA Cartes du Ciel
Posted: Sun 20 Jan 2013, 01:05
by Monsie
Hi all,
It's been nearly five years since
this announcement of a Pup for those who are interested in Astronomy. Much of the software in that release is rather dated, and I don't know the status of the project --though I found a download page for a version 1.01
here.
In any event, I thought it would be convenient to have some astronomy software for regular Puppy releases also --for those of us who have a passing interest in this area but who don't need to run a release that is devoted entirely to this science. While I have always been interested in this subject, it's been almost forty years since I was fortunate enough to take a first year Astronomy course at the regional College (now a University) where I live...
So I had a look at what is available, and I found
Skychart @
SourceForge. It is Planetarium software, though it is not as popular or well known as
Stellarium. The nice thing about this free open-source project is that it is available pre-compiled in a sort of generic form, so that I was easily able to re-package it for Puppy Linux. I put it together in Wary Puppy, but that doesn't really matter, as it should run on most 32 bit Puppies. For those interested, there are also 64 bit compilations available for Linux based systems that can be re-packaged.
Skychart is a full featured Astronomy package that continues under active development. For those lucky enough to have a telescope with motorized mount,
Skychart provides support for many brands of instruments and hardware.
Skychart is also capable of providing satellite tracking, though this feature must be run in
Wine apparently. In short,
Skychart offers a wealth of features for the serious amateur astronomer --features that I have only begun to look at...
The Pet is too large to upload at the Forum, so I have it at Data File Host
here.
Monsie
Posted: Sun 20 Jan 2013, 14:39
by Eyes-Only
Thank you so very much Monsie for offering this for download! This is almost exactly what I've been looking for.
I've managed to have lost a lot of my basic "star placement and constellation" knowledge over the past 15 or so years and it's become a bit frustrating when outside nights to see certain stars and think, "I once knew the name of that one..."
It's much like watching an old-time movie, seeing a famous actor, then asking yourself, "Now just who was he?" His name is on the tip of your tongue the entire day ( possibly the next as well! ) and it drives you crazy. ( Of course everyone here already knows I passed that "crazy point" ages ago!
)
Thanks once again Monsie! Gee whiz... it's too bad that the Puppy "Cloudy-Skies" is no longer available. At least I ended up getting a 404 from the links.
Merci Mille Fois mon chum!
Cheers/Amicalement,
Eyes-Only
"L'Peau-Rouge d'Acadie"
Skychart 3.6 AKA Cartes du Ciel
Posted: Mon 21 Jan 2013, 09:33
by Monsie
Merci beaucoup, Eyes-Only
It is always nice to know that one's efforts are appreciated. Beyond that, I am interested in any feedback from you, or others, as to how well Skychart is working for you, what you managed to accomplish etc. Since Skychart is such a busy program with lots of features and capabilities, I think the Puppy Community can benefit from a shared learning perspective. Note also that if you find a bug, you can file a report from within the program --though you would want to check the status of the problem to see if it hasn't been reported already and/or has been fixed for the next version release.
If you are interested in the Cloudy Skies Live Pup I believe that CatDude has a copy stored with smokey01 at his website. Check out the last post by CatDude in that thread I linked to. While I think this Pup may be getting old, and that it is designed for hard core hobbyists rather than the more casual observer, likely it still has good value for some enthusiasts.
Cheers,
Monsie
Skychart 3.6 AKA Cartes du Ciel
Posted: Sun 03 Feb 2013, 11:12
by Monsie
Hi all,
Update: I just wanted to let you know that I found out
from this thread here how to modify the main menu in Puppy to include a
Science category for Skychart. As part of the process, I downloaded a couple of icon files
from this site to represent the new Science category and placed them here:
/usr/local/lib/X11/pixmaps and here:
/usr/local/lib/X11/themes/LaGaBluenight --the latter directory is the actual name of the theme I am using in Wary Puppy, but of course, theme folders will vary per individual. The other change I made which was not mentioned in the thread that I referenced, was to edit the
.desktop file for Skychart
(-->/usr/local/share/applications) to reflect the new Menu category:
This will move Skychart out of the
Personal category that I used as the default entry.
Lastly run:
at the terminal, then
Restart JWM from the Puppy Menu... done.
Other than that, there were a few little things I did to polish things up while making this change to Puppy Menu -- though these little "finishing details" were not absolutely necessary.
In any event, if you are interested in those details, and/or have some further questions about how to change Puppy Menu, let me know...
Monsie
Skychart 3.6 AKA Cartes du Ciel
Posted: Sun 10 Feb 2013, 04:59
by Monsie
Heads-up everyone,
For those who are running a custom menu to include the
"Science" category for
Skychart or want to do so, and... also want to try an updated build of
Joe's Window Manager found here you need to know that the update will overwrite your _root_.jwmrc file to default settings and therefore you'll lose the custom menu entry for
Skychart.
Fortunately the fix is quick and easy...
--> /etc/xdg/templates and right click on your
_root_.jwmrc file to:
Open As Text. Add the missing entry for
Skychart with your text editor:
Code: Select all
PUPPYMENU jwm-xdgmenu /etc/xdg/menus/puppy-science.menu
Save your changes, then --> Terminal:
Finally,
--> Menu--> Shutdown--> Restart JWM ... you are done.
Monsie
Skychart
Posted: Sun 10 Feb 2013, 19:05
by Wognath
Monsie, thanks for the information about starchart software. Stellarium runs painfully slowly in Saluki, but Skychart runs well.
Re: Skychart
Posted: Mon 01 Apr 2013, 08:03
by Monsie
Wognath wrote:Monsie, thanks for the information about starchart software. Stellarium runs painfully slowly in Saluki, but Skychart runs well.
I have
Stellarium 10.5-1 and
Skychart 3.6 installed on my main desktop which is
Debian Squeeze.
System Monitor reports that in terms of ram usage,
Stellarium takes 42 mb to run, while
Skychart takes 59.5 mb to run. However,
System Monitor reports that CPU activity varies between 88% and 92% all of the time when running
Stellarium in the background.
On the other hand, System Monitor reports mostly 0% CPU activity when running
Skychart in the background, while occasionally it rises to 6%
I haven't investigated this further, so I really don't know what is going on here, but obviously something is terribly wrong with this particular version of
Stellarium. Hopefully the program has improved significantly, and the code has been optimized since that release. Aside: I'm surprised this particular version made it to the
Debian Repositories. In any event, for those running
Stellarium and/or
Skychart in
Puppy, you might want to run
Top or similar application to get such information for comparison... especially if your version of
Stellarium is newer than the one found in
Debian Squeeze.
Monsie
Skychart 3.6 AKA Cartes du Ciel
Posted: Mon 01 Apr 2013, 08:12
by Monsie
Hi all,
Update: I see that Skychart 3.8 is out now, and this latest release has some improvements: bug fixes obviously (although many are for other operating systems) and improvements including: (I noticed) better placement of object labels on the sky, so that there will be little or no overlapping of names on the map.
I will tackle putting together a package for Skychart 3.8 soon.
Monsie
Further Update: I am sorry for a bit of delay, but I really have been "under the weather" for the past couple of weeks... Thankfully, I am now on the mend...
So, here is
Skychart 3.8 at Data File Host. I will leave version 3.6 available for now... --in case there are any problems with this new version. (Eventually, the old version of
Skychart will become unavailable anyway once downloads cease after an interval of sixty days). You will need to un-install
Skychart 3.6 before installing the new version, however, the good news is that your personal settings (for example: observatory location) will be saved as these details are kept in the hidden
.skychart directory. which is retained after uninstalling the program.
Once again,
Skychart will appear in the
Personal category of the Menu, and it appears that this is now the default location for
Science applications in the latest Puppies. However, you may want to create a
Science category as I did previously, and while I haven't done this yet in
Wary 5.5 I hope it will not be a problem...
Monsie
Skychart Update
Posted: Mon 08 Apr 2013, 06:39
by Monsie
Hmmm...
I see that my last post was not recorded as having been edited, so I am writing this now to bump this thread to the front of the line --so-to-speak, since it includes an important update.
Monsie
Posted: Mon 08 Apr 2013, 12:59
by Eyes-Only
Thanks for keeping this very helpful and fun programme updated for those of us who'd like to know, "What's that bright star up there I wonder?..."
I know that having forgotten a lot of my "armchair astronomy" over the years Monsie this programme has brought me a lot of enjoyment. So I thought I'd at least write to let you know that I appreciate your work on making this available to us.
Merci mille fois mon bon chum!
Amicalement et @+
Eyes-Only
"L'Peau-Rouge d'Acadie"
Posted: Mon 08 Apr 2013, 13:52
by Geoffrey
Monsie,
Nice, works in Carolina, I'll test it a little, if all is well I'll add it to the Carolina repo.
Thanks