17.Aug.2001
Achim Stegemann (ANF)
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Digital Almanac III - update announcement and news
There are some news on the popular astronomy program Digital Almanac III: in the
next time (very vague - summer holidays, vacation!) there'll be a new update. Due
to the many new features it will become version 4.0. Here is an overview of the
most important changes.
Bugfixes:
- moon shadow on Earth at eclipse was slightly wrong since last version
- drawing of parabola-like orbits was corrected
- error in PHA check corrected
- positions of Martian moons corrected (wrong reference level)
- improved position calculation of the Galilean Moons (very exact over a long course of time)
New features:
- new moons of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune (!) and Pluto (!)
- partially renewed calculation kernel
- more maps of Mars, Venus and the Galilean Moons
- filtering functions for planets/moons, deep sky objects and constellations.
They allow to set drawing parameters for each single object or groups of objects
- reworked textures
- telescope can be controlled now also with numeric pad in the main and telescope window
- import of comet orbit data directly from the internet!
- for future versions there's now an automated update from the internet available.
The annoying Shell command line procedure is history.
- Online information from the internet on planets/moons, Messier objects and
constellations (through OpenURL).
Because of the many changes the update archive will be several MByte in size. Alternately
the update can be ordered for a small contribution towards expenses directly from Achim
Stegemann. The CD contains not only the update but also big textures as well as numerous
new pictures for your image collection.
More news:
Currently an OpenGL output (through StormMesa and Warp3D) is being worked on. This is
purely experimental though, and it is not certain whether Achim Stegemann will have the
time to complete it.
A GL version would speed up the graphics output, especially textures, considerably.
(ps) (Translation: rh)
[News message: 17. Aug. 2001, 19:22] [Comments: 0]
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