Micro Mart - 10 March 2016_

68 Issue 1191

Linux

Specialists

68 Issue14 04

David Hayward has

been using Linux

since Red Hat 2.0

in schools, businesses

and at home, which

either makes him

very knowledgeable

or a gluttonfor

extreme punishment

A

few years ago, I

treated myself to a

telescope, after

spending more than

half an hour taking the bins

out on a particularly clear night.

I’ve always had an interest in

what’s up there, but it wasn’t

until I got my telescope that I

really began to appreciate just

how much there is to view even

from the small area of a back

garden in deepest Lowestoft.

I’m no professional

astronomer, so I need some

help when it comes to locating

and identifying the visible

planets, stars, galaxies and so

on that you see on a clear night

just before you trip over the

cat. To that end, I use a

collection of programs to aid

me. Some of these are on my

tablet, since it’s easier to carry

around, and others are on my

Linux laptop, which can be

connected to the telescope and

used as a finder.

Anyway, I thought I’d share

them with you, since the nights

have been so clearrecently, and

now is a good time to get

outside for some star gazing.

Google Sky

Although it’s often frowned

upon by clever amateur

astronomers, Google Sky

is my first go-to app for

helping me locate a particular

heavenly body.

If I see something that I’m

not too sure of, it’s a simple

enough job to power up my

tablet or phone, launch Google

Sky and point it in the direction

of the thing I’m looking at.

Nine times out of ten, I won’t

need to calibrate the compass

sensor or anything, and it’ll tell

me what the object is.

From there, it’s easy to

quickly get my binoculars out

or take a little longer to set up

the telescope.

Celestia

I don’t usually use Celestia for

proper star gazing. In truth

I use it to explore the solar

system and to see what’s

out there and what’s newly

discovered by Nasa and earth-

bound observatories.

You can, of course, use it for

traditional astronomy, but

Celestia goes one better by

allowing you to travel to the

planet you’re currently looking

at and getting all sorts of

information about it. Further to

that, you can also travel outside

of the solar system and even

outside the galaxy to the outer

reaches of the visible universe.

Of course, a lot of that is

theoretical, but considering it’s

theorised by far more clever

people, I’m willing to take it as

reality.Try travelling to

EGSY8p7 and looking back at

our own sun; it’s only 13.2

billion light years away.

Stellarium

Stellarium is the main

astronomical program I use.

Not only can I plan out a future

night’s viewing, if the weather

holds, but I can also connect

the telescope and track any of

the objects that are visible from

my little patch of earth.

It’s a big program these

days, with hundreds of

megabytes of extra star data

to download and use, and it

can get grind slowly if you’re

using an older laptop.

However, it’s an amazing tool,

and even if you don’t owna

telescop,e it’s a great

educationalresource.

If you have any astronomy

tools for Linux you think are

worth checking out, then

please email in and let us know.

jAstronomy is always better with

a bit of Linux

Astronomy

On Linux

Plenty of space for space with Linux