Astronomy software I have installed on my box include KStars, Stellarium, Planets, Celestia, Predict and some others. However, NONE of them allow me to set dates prior to 1 AD, and those that do seem insistent on cycling the stars across the heavens for every day from the current setting till then. Even after you get the date set to 1AD for the next few minutes the stars swim across the screen.
This poor behavior made me long for my old choice for an astronomy program: Xephem. I went to its site and downloaded the tar file, which is open source and free. Downey sells "complete" tar files which include hundreds of megs of containing 450 Million stars, catalogs and objects in 1.5GB of tar files, for $50.
The tar file failed in four attempts to compile. I used apt-file on the failed library to find the package it was in, installed the package and recompiled. The forth attempt failed with a "wrong" architecture message. The tar file was built specifying 32 bit libraries. Rather than go looking for the 64 bit version of the libraries I compiled on on my 32bit Oneric VM installation. It compiled fine after installing the necessary three missing libraries.
While googleing another problem I stumbled across this site, which had a deb package compiled on Aug 11, 2011 for Xephem-3.7.5-1, and included a 39Mb catalog deb package made in 2007. They installed on my Lucid installation without a problem and ran perfectly. I opened the "Data-->Download" menu option and clicked on all the "get" button to update every catalog. With Xephem I can install two-line element files for any object in the solar system, run the system for any time range and at any speed, and make movies of the result. Sweet. 8)
This poor behavior made me long for my old choice for an astronomy program: Xephem. I went to its site and downloaded the tar file, which is open source and free. Downey sells "complete" tar files which include hundreds of megs of containing 450 Million stars, catalogs and objects in 1.5GB of tar files, for $50.
The tar file failed in four attempts to compile. I used apt-file on the failed library to find the package it was in, installed the package and recompiled. The forth attempt failed with a "wrong" architecture message. The tar file was built specifying 32 bit libraries. Rather than go looking for the 64 bit version of the libraries I compiled on on my 32bit Oneric VM installation. It compiled fine after installing the necessary three missing libraries.
While googleing another problem I stumbled across this site, which had a deb package compiled on Aug 11, 2011 for Xephem-3.7.5-1, and included a 39Mb catalog deb package made in 2007. They installed on my Lucid installation without a problem and ran perfectly. I opened the "Data-->Download" menu option and clicked on all the "get" button to update every catalog. With Xephem I can install two-line element files for any object in the solar system, run the system for any time range and at any speed, and make movies of the result. Sweet. 8)
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