Newsgroup: it.scienza.astronomia.amatoriale
Titolo: Rilasciata la versione 4.0 del programma Occult di Dave Herald

Come da oggetto.
http://www.lunar-occultations.com/iota/occult4.htm
Eliseo
-- 
«Cher ami, je te remarque plus intelligent et profond» «Chère ami, ils sont 
les autres à être plus des stupides et superficiels». (Eliseo, "Pensées")
«L'humanité est ce qu'elle est. Le problème n'est pas de la changer, mais de 
la connaître.» (Gustave Flaubert)

 Eliseo
Add.:
I am pleased to announce that Occult Version 4.0 is now available for 
download - from:
http://www.lunar-
 occultations. com/iota/ occult4.htm
The download consists of:
1. The main installation package [40MB] and a SetUp.exe file
2. A separate download of the Tycho2 catalogue [63MB] - but if you have this 
catalogue
for use in Occult3, you do not need to download it.
3. A separate download of the JPL DE413 planetary ephemeris [52MB] which is
strongly recommended for maximum precision, but is not essential.
Further details about the download are given on the download page.
************ ********* ******
WHAT'S NEW IN OCCULT V4?
************ ********* ******
Occult 4 is a complete rewrite of the Occult program, using the language C#
and the '.Net Framework'. This has resulted in a vast number of changes in 
detail.
The items listed here are merely the more noteworthy:
* Improved functionality for predicting lunar occultation and grazes - with 
daily
predictions covering the whole night (ie from about noon to noon)
* Improved functionality for predicting asteroid occultations
* Improved tools for recording and analysing lunar occultations and grazes
* Improved tools for recording and analysing asteroid occultations
* Direct linking with GoogleEarth for drawing occultation and eclipse paths
* Direct linking with GoogleSky for viewing star fields
* FTP downloads of important files - such as Astorb, Steve Preston's 
Future.dat
file of current asteroid occultations, and the MPC file of comet orbits.
* Faster computation. The speed increase depends on many factors, but Occult 
v4
is generally at least twice as fast as Occult 3.6. The most significant speed
increase is searching for asteroid occultations - which is over 10 times 
faster.
* Greater accuracy, through revision of the code, and use of improved data
sources (DE413 planetary ephemeris, Chebychev polynomial series for many 
moons
of Jupiter and Uranus)
* For web site owners, create HTML files of occultation and eclipse paths for
GoogleMaps, and create feeds for OccultWatcher
* Eclipses and occultations and transits of the main satellites of Jupiter,
Saturn, Uranus and Neptune (with the planet)
* Mutual eclipses and occultations of the main satellites of Jupiter, Saturn
and Uranus
* A Magnitude Calculator to determine the magnitudes of the components of a
double star from a light curve;
* winOccult3 had several different site file formats. Occult4 uses a single 
format
for sites. You can import site files you created in Occult 3, and convert
them to the new format.
************ *******
QUICK OVERVIEW
************ ******
The Help file system includes a series of 'First-time user examples' to lead 
you
through much of functionality provided by the program. You should make sure
you work through these examples, to learn what can be done with Occult.
The program has 8 principal components, accessed from a single form.
* Asteroid predictions: Access the routines for generating occultation 
elements,
and then generating predictions of occultations using a wide range of
selection criteria, and a wide range of output options..
* Asteroid observations: Record observations of occultations by asteroids,
analyse observations to derive the size and shape of asteroids, and
access the file of all historical observations. This section also includes
options to display summary results, and administrator functions for reporting
and archiving results.
* Eclipses and transits: Predict solar and lunar eclipses, and transits of
Mercury and Venus. Predictions are valid over the period from the year -9999
to several millennia in the future. Also analyse observations of Baily's 
Beads,
and generate animations of an eclipse and the Baily's Bead phenomena.
* Ephemerides: Generate general ephemerides of solar system objects - 
including
all planets, and all satellites brighter than mag 20. Also generate star 
charts.
* Lunar predictions: Generate lunar occultation predictions. Predictions can
be generated for selected sites, for selected objects, or for multiple sites
and objects. Predictions also include grazing occultation predictions.
* Lunar observations: Record and analyse lunar occultation observations,
including grazing occultations. Data files allow for the investigation of
the historical file of occultation observations from 1623 to the present.
* Satellite phenomena: Generate predictions of eclipses/occultatio 
ns/transits
of the main satellites of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune with the 
planet.
Generate predictions of mutual eclipses and occultations of the main
satellites of Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus.
* Maintenance: Area for maintaining various files and user settings.
This version of OCCULT is a complete rewrite in the language C# using the
Net V2 framework. This program will function on any platform that supports
the Net V2 framework - and not just the 'Windows' environment. [For example,
a Linux version of Net V2 is well under development. It is called Mono.] To 
reflect
this important change, the program has reverted to its original name of 
'Occult',
rather than 'winOccult'.
************ **
Who do I ask if I have problems?
************ **
Ultimately, any serious problem will have to be addressed by myself. But over 
the
18 months development there has been a group of people testing the program. 
Indeed,
pre-release versions of the program have been the basis of several feeds for
OccultWatcher, and the detailed predictions on Derek Breit's site.
I encourage people to join the Yahoo group Occult_Software, and raise queries 
there
- so that answers are available to all. You may also get a faster response
(particularly having regard to time zone differences) , as many of the 
testers
will be able to answer your questions.
Finally, I would like to acknowledge the great assistance provided by the 
group of 
testers:
Derek Breit, Scott Donnell, John Ducheck, Chad Ellington, Dave Gault, Tony 
George,
Hristo Pavlov, Sander Pool, Steve Preston, Rob Robinson, and Brad Timerson
Dave Herald
Canberra, Australia
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