XEphem(1X)XEphem(1X)Name
XEphem 3.5 - an interactive astronomical ephemeris for X
Syntaxxephem [-prfb] [-install {yes|no|guess}] [-resfile
<resourcefile>]
Description
XEphem is an interactive astronomical ephemeris program
for X Windows systems. It provides many graphical views
as well as quantitative heliocentric, geocentric and
topocentric information for Earth satellites, solar system
and celestial objects.
XEphem contains extensive context-sensitive on-line help.
Virtually none of that help is duplicated here so go ahead
and run XEphem to learn more.
The Main window of XEphem provides control and display of
three basic services: observing circumstances, looping,
and access to additional tools and displays. Observing
circumstances includes location, date, time and
atmospheric conditions (used for the refraction model).
Looping refers to the ability to set up XEphem so that it
automatically increments time at a desired step size and
rate. Additional displays provide all of the graphical and
quantitative information available, and always refer to
the circumstances defined in the main menu. Tools provide
access to plotting, searching, AAVSO, Seti@Home and more.
Options-prfb displays all the built-in default resources, then
exits.
-install controls whether XEphem will install a private
colormap. Without this option XEphem will try to decide
automatically whether it is necessary. To force using a
private colormap, use -install yes; to prevent it use
-install no. The default automatic behavior is equivalent
to -install guess.
-resfile <resourcefile> tells XEphem to use an alternate
file for initial resource settings. See below for the
default situation.
Menu Tour
File
This menu controls basic operation, including exiting.
When XEphem is first started it may beep. This means a
message has been put in the System log dialog, which can
be displayed from this menu. Other chores here include
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XEphem(1X)XEphem(1X)
setting up network access; displaying a simple progress
meter; controlling time and location information remotely,
and keyboard accelerators for time stepping.
View
This menu offers several graphical displays if the Earth,
Moon and several planets; a user configurable table; and
Sky and Solar System views.
Tools
This menu gives access to tools which can plot any XEphem
data items; save any data items to text files for easy
export to other programs; enter an arbitrary function to
evaluate and solve using any XEphem data items; access
AAVSO online; monitor your Seti@Home client; show the
Night at a glance; find close pairs of objects; and
convert among various astonomical coordinate systems.
Data
This menu gives control over which objects XEphem will
work with. Objects may be created on the fly, read from
catalog files, downloaded from the Internet, deleted or
searched. A special category of objects known as Field
Stars may be configured, which are very large catalogs of
objects whose access has been optimized. Up to three User
objects may be assigned for especially easy access in
several other places throughout XEphem.
Preferences
This menu offers several configuration choices. These will
effect the overall appearance or behavior of XEphem.
These choices, as well as fonts and colors, can be changed
at runtime and saved to disk to become the new defaults.
Help
This menu offers overall information about XEphem; context
sensitive help; several worked examples; references;
version number and the Copyright statement.
X Resources
XEphem initial conditions are defined using a resource
file. By default the file is named XEphem located in a
directory also called XEphem in your $HOME directory. You
should never find the need to edit this by hand because
XEphem will manage it when you Save settings.
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XEphem(1X)XEphem(1X)Author
Elwood Downey, email ecdowney@ClearSkyInstitute.com.
References
The latest information about XEphem is maintained at
http://www.clearskyinstitute.com/xephem
The online Help entry on Credits lists many of the
references, individuals and organizations which have
contributed to XEphem.
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