Alcyone Astronomical Software - ephemeris software, astronomical tables, solar eclipse calculator


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Alcyone Ephemeris - an accurate and fast astronomical ephemeris calculator covering the period 3000 BC to AD 3000

Software > Alcyone Ephemeris

Alcyone Ephemeris 4.3 is an accurate and fast astronomical ephemeris calculator covering the period 3000 BC to AD 3000. It calculates heliocentric, geocentric, and topocentric positions of the Sun (Earth), planets, 18 natural satellites, and small bodies (minor planets and comets) in ecliptical, equatorial, and horizontal coordinates, with optional corrections for parallax and refraction; rectangular coordinates, velocity, apparent diameter, magnitude, phase, lunar libration, orbital elements, differences for all of these, and more.

download trial version (~49 MB)

Alcyone Ephemeris screenshot

In addition Alcyone Ephemeris offers a wealth of functionality: star chart generation, 3D-visualization of heliocentric and planetocentric orbits, plotting ephemeris data (as a function of time or in a parametric plot), searching for specific values, data export (Excel, HTML, XML, Text), scripting to write programs for more complex computations, and printing. Access to the complete Bright Star Catalogue, a calendar conversion tool, and an astronomical event calculator are available.
The ephemeris calculation is based upon Steve Moshier's analytical ephemeris using trigonometric expansions for the earth and planets and the lunar ephemeris ELP2000-85 of Chapront-Touzé and Chapront for the moon, both adjusted to Jet Propulsion Laboratory's DE404 (see www.moshier.net). There are further adjustments in Alcyone Ephemeris, some optional, to JPL's more recent DE406, the most accurate long-term ephemeris. Small-body ephemeris calculations are based upon high-accuracy calculations performed by the HORIZONS ephemeris generator. These calculations require data files, which are available online for a growing number (200+) of bodies. Alcyone Ephemeris is fast. With an Athlon XP 6000+ processor, 100 calculations of geocentric longitude, latitude, and distance for the sun, moon, and all planets take less than 0.7 seconds. Alcyone Ephemeris runs under Windows XP/Vista/7.

What's new in Alcyone Ephemeris 4.3

New: lunar features in star chart
New example files
Updated DT files
Improved: appearance of the Moon in star chart
Various smaller improvements & fixes

What's new in Alcyone Ephemeris 4.2

New: create ephemeris data directly from the astronomical event calculator
New: local cicumstances of solar and lunar eclipses
New: quick access to user's home location
New: 'Go to date/time' dialog
New: 'differences only' option in data view
New: active row indication in ephemeris table
Improved speed of star chart creation
Improved Windows Vista and Windows 7 compatibility
Various smaller improvements & fixes

What's new in Alcyone Ephemeris 4.1

New : (optional) magnitude calculations for Mercury and Venus use the updated models described in Astronomical Journal, 129:2902-2906 (Hilton, 2005)
New : panning and zooming in parametric diagram
New : text labels in XY diagram and parametric
Improved : appearance of celestial equator in star charts
New : coordinate labels in star chart
Various smaller improvements & fixes

What's new in Alcyone Ephemeris 4.0

New : epemeris data calculation for 18 natural satellites (JI-JIV, SI-SVIII, UI-UV)
Improved : up to 16385 rows of data in ephemeris table
New : scripting (in BASIC or Pascal) expands capabilities greatly
New : script editor with debugging capabilities
Improved : ephemeris data selection
New : topocentric lunar libration
New : units of data are shown in column headers of the ephemeris table
New : 2-row arrangement of ephemeris data and differences
New : up to four y-axes in XY diagram
New : optional automatic color assignment (y-axes and data series) in XY diagram
Improved : Excel and XML export
New : diagrams and star chart can be saved as JPEG, PNG or BMP files
New : reports can be saved as PDF, HTML or RTF files
New : open XML file format
New : data files for all dwarf planets included (currently Ceres, Pluto, Haumea, Eris, Makemake)
Improved : online program updates
Various smaller improvements & fixes

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