Alcyone Astronomical Software - ephemeris software, astronomical tables, solar eclipse calculator
Planetary, Stellar and Lunar Visibility - List of Functions
Software > Planetary, Stellar and Lunar Visibility
- calculates for any year at intervals of 4 minutes: horizon coordinats of the sun, moon, planets, and stars, magnitudes of the planets, phases of the moon
- shows all of these corresponding to the position of the mouse cursor in the diagram
- includes a database of observer locations with more than 400 entries, user may add any number of locations
- marks the local time in the diagram for current year and location
- year of computation accepted from 3000 BC to 3000 AD
- shows visibility conditions, whether visible or invisible by colors and variation of apparent magnitude by shadings, from light when the planet is brighter to dark when fainter (if the computer’s color resolution is 15 bpp. or better, meaning “high color” or “true color”)
- shows the times of twilight in diagram for the sun
- shows the times of sunrise and sunset and times the sun is at specified altitudes above or below the horizon
- uses Daylight Savings Time if selected
- calculates the dates of heliacal phenomena of planets and stars and marks them in the diagrams as horizontal lines with vertical lines showing times of planet rise/set and sun rise/setuser may select parameters for these computations
- calculates the dates of first and last visibility of the moon and marks them in the diagram as horizontal lines with vertical lines showing times of moon rise/set and sun rise/setuser may select parameters for these computations
- shows the times of solar and lunar eclipses visible from selected location and local circumstances of the eclipses (accurate for historical eclipses e.g. the "historical" total solar eclipse of 899 BC) in separate windows
- shows the positions of the Galilean satellites of Jupiter
- shows rotation and illumination diagrams for the planets, the moon and sun
- calculates dates of the heliacal phenomena of the planets and stars
