XEphem


XEphem is a Motif based ephemeris and planetarium program for Unix-like operating systems developed by Elwood C. Downey.

History

XEphem started as a Unix and Motif conversion of the IBM PC-based . It was initially released in December 1993 with version 2.5. The most recent stable version is 3.7.6. XEphem's source code is available, but its free usage is restricted for personal and educational purposes only. The full set of catalogs is only distributed with a purchase of the commercial version.

Algorithms and models

XEphem uses
and includes
and other specialized catalogs. It also include the Digital Lunar Orbiter Photographic Atlas of the Moon. XEphem is a client for Internet data sources such as the Digitized Sky Survey, Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, AAVSO light curves, and global temperature and cloud coverage. Through the Instrument Neutral Distributed Interface, XEphem can control some models of amateur telescopes, such as by Meade, Celestron, and Vixen, and auxiliary telescope components.

Catalogs

While the free version of XEphem only includes a subset of the SKYMAP Master Catalog and the Messier Catalog, the internal format of the remaining catalogs can be inferred from the source code, and e.g. the internal binary Tycho-2 catalog can be generated from the original data. This is also possible for the non-stellar catalogs in the ASCII .edb format, such as for HYPERLEDA.
XEphem can also read several astrometric catalogs in their original formats:
Numerical routines are used in PyEphem with permission of Elwood Downey.