Miscellaneous pages on this site
A slew of discussions that have no logical place:
Using a Webcam in place of digital setting circles: I've had some thoughts of putting together or finding a camera capable of imaging wide-field (two degrees or greater) star fields, then using a pattern-matching algorithm to determine where the camera is pointed. This would, among other things, be a wonderful DSC replacement. Click here for details.
Possible method for handling trailed star images: Almost all astrometry software treats star/asteroid images as simple Gaussians, but it's theoretically quite possible to handle trailed images. This would be very useful with fast-moving objects, but so far, I've gotten no farther than figuring out the basic mathematics. Click here for details.
Solving Kepler's equation: There are hundreds of approaches to this problem, balancing such factors as simplicity, usable range, average-case speed, and worst-case speed. On this page, I discuss the algorithm used in my software. Click here for details.
'Useless' features in Guide: Undocumented features such as how to set your viewpoint to be somewhere other than on a planet; adding extra Telrads; and showing variable stars differently according to their classes. Note that most are undocumented for good reason: either they're not especially useful, or they're user-abusive. Click here for details.
USNO-Ax.0 file sizes and disk info: The USNO-A1.0 and USNO-A2.0 datasets consume ten and eleven CD-ROMs, respectively, and are stored in a non-intuitive order. These pages tell you which data is on which disk and how much hard drive space to allow for a given area/magnitude limit. Click here for info on A1.0, or here for A2.0 info.
Telescope encoders: A few paragraphs with some recommendations about encoders, a description of the protocol for communicating with Tangent Instrument-type encoders, plus a short bit about oddities in the Celestron Advanced Astro-Master. Click here for details.
Some books concerning astronomical computations: I've had enough inquiries about good books for these subjects that I decided to start assembling a list of what's on my bookshelf. This is by no means comprehensive; I've only bothered to describe books relevant to a few of the questions I've received recently. Click here for details.
Minor planet groups and families: A reasonably complete list, with some discussion, of the more important groups and families. Click here for details.
Event tables in Guide: A description of how to add tables to the "miscellaneous tables" list in Guide. Click here for details.
FITS compression/decompression, source code: I've ported the hcompress image compression package, developed at the Space Telescope Science Institute, to DOS, and made some small changes/improvements. Click here for details.
LST/GST clock program (freeware): A very simple little Windoze program to show time in either of these occasionally useful systems. Click here for details.
Lunar eclipse program (freeware): A very simple little DOS program to show a world map and the times and coverage of lunar eclipses. Click here for details.
About Pluto: Roughly once a month, I get an e-mail that's pretty obviously in the "homework" category, asking for information about Pluto. I wrote this page as a defence mechanism; now, when I get such an inquiry, I can just fire back this URL. Probably not very interesting unless your kid has a science report due concerning Pluto. Click here for details.
General relativity correction: I learned of an almost trivial way to compensate, to first order, for the effects of GR in orbital computations. Using this, you can (for example) integrate the orbit of Mercury and get that "missing" 43 arcseconds/century of precession that was one of the more impressive aspects of the theory. Click here for details.