Cornelis Bockemuehl has been updated to version 1.01 PmAs, a set of astronomically oriented programs. It calculates positions of celestial bodies, times, risings and settings etc. and displays the results in table and/or graphic form, all nicely integrated in the Presentation Manager. You can download the files at:
http://www.datacomm.ch/cobo

New in this release

The new version includes together with a number of bug fixes also some real improvements:

- Updated (and increased number of) star positions for graphic display, constellation boundaries, labelling etc.

- Scaling of symbols and labels can now be fine-tuned by the user.

- Users of Warp 3 and earlier versions will like the new environment variable PMAS_WIDE which enlarges the notebook dialogs, making them readible also with "old style" notebooks.

- And a number of minor details...

What is PmAs?

PmAs does astronomical calculations and outputs the results as tables or graphics. It is made up of a number of programs and modules which are responsible for certain tasks. Cooperation between the parts is based on the capabilities of the OS/2 presentation manager. It may be run in german and english and includes documentation and online help in both languages.

The program series is intended for users with a certain basic knowledge of astronomy and astronomical terms , i.e. these are not covered by the documentation.

Comparing PmAs

PmAs is not a planetarium like e.g. NightVision, which displays a fixed or animated image of the sky: PmAs also offers a lot of options for displaying the sky, but animation is not among them.

Nor is PmAs a "astronomical command center", like Xephem could possibly be called, but with this program it is already more comparable in many respects. Anyway, big differences exist in concept and technical realization. At the moment Xephem is probably the more mature product, and PmAs will probably not duplicate many of its functions, but it has a number of strengths of its own

Some of them are the following:

The many formatting options for tables and graphics once they are already ready calculated.

The strict modularity, which allows extensions and changes to be made very easily.

The integration into the OS/2 Presentation Manager, which allows the transfer of data between programs by "drag and drop" in many cases.

The modules

The showmasters

PmAsTab and PmAsGraf are responsible for the display of the calculated results as tables and/or graphics. They can either load, show and edit already stored tables and graphics or serve as a output server for other programs, receiving their data through a pipe mechanism.

The workhorses

PmAsBase is a DLL and contains all functions needed for the astronomical calculations. Modules for calculating positions may be added.

PmAsDlg is another DLL and adds a user interface to the astronomy programs that is made up of a notebook dialog. The user enters the necessary input there before the calculations are started.

The astronomy programs

The actual astronomy programs are relatively small compared to the modules described until here (and it is rather simple to write more). Until now there are:

PmAsEph calculates an ephemeris, i.e. positions of a moving celestial body at a number of times.

PmAsApl is in a way the opposite of the ephemeris program: It calculates for one single moment the positions of a whole list of celestial bodies.

PmAsRist determines times of rise and set as well as culminations.

PmAsTime does calculations between time systems.

Supplementary programs

There exists one supplemental program at the moment:

PmAsGdat converts any positional data so that they can be displayed with PmAsGraf, and on the other hand makes the graphic data of PmAsGraf editable.

Examples of use

The following examples illustrate the strengths of PmAs:

Sample: Evening visibility of Venus

With PmAsRist calculate a list of times within a given timespan when the Sun is 6 degrees below the horizon. Output as a table goes through PmAsTab.

With PmAsEph azimuth and altitude of Venus can be calculated for all these times by dragging the calculated times into the notebook page for entering times.

Sample: Several planet trails in a sky map

With PmAsEph calculate the trail of the first planet. Output occurs through PmAsGraf.

Calculate another planet trail with PmAsEph. The output of the graphic goes into a second inscance of PmAsGraf.

The second graphic can now simply be dragged into the first one: The second planet trail will appear in the first graphic, while the background (the sky) will not be included a second time (duplicates are eliminated automatically).

The second and third step may be repeated.

Download

The PmAs programs are here for free download and their use is free for private and scientific purposes. The author (Cornelis Bockemühl) holds all rights and doesn't take any responsibility nor guarantees anything.

The distribution of the programs on other ways than the Homepage of the author is not supported, because only that way the actuality of the files may be achieved with not too much effort.

The programs are organized as packages together with a date so that parts may be easily updated.

System requirements

This programs are running with OS/2 Warp 4 and are "optimized for Pentium" (whatever that means). Older versions of OS/2 are not tested, but with the notebook dialogs there may be problems. (If it would be asked for there could easily be other versions produced which run with all versions from 2.11).




CONTACT AUTHOR

Cornelis Bockemühl
cbockem@datacomm.ch
http://www.datacomm.ch/cobo

@Macarlo, Inc.
@Macarlo's Shareware & Web
OS/2
Java Lobby Member
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