A
Sampling of Astronomy Software and Resources for Apple Macintosh Computers
One asterisk * means I have or had a license and I have tried the application.
Two asterisks ** means I have a current license and I use the
application. Three asterisks *** means that I am a frequent user.
Remember that the asterisks or lack thereof are not a quality rating;
they only indicate my level of experience with an app.
This is not a comprehensive list of Macintosh astronomy software. Send me updates
with your own brief writeup for inclusion on this page.
|
| APOD
Grabber * |
Retrieves (via the Internet) and displays the Astronomical Picture
of the Day. No longer available on the original site, railheaddesign.com, so google it. It’s rather pointless anyway, I think, since you can see the APOD at http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html. |
| Applelust
Scitech |
Web site. Science—including astronomy—on
the Mac. |
| Astro IIDC * |
FireWire Webcam Control. Used by Alan
Friedman for images like the ones in his gallery. 'Nuf said. |
| AstroPlanner * |
Observation planning and telescope control. Highly
recommended. Can communicate with Equinox. |
| Astrostack * |
Java-based image stacker-combiner. |
| BTVPro * |
Captures QuickTime video from FireWire or USB webcams.
Requires drivers from iOXperts |
| Cartes Du Ciel/Skychart * |
Originally Windows-only and known as Cartes Du Ciel (Sky Charts), this venerable (and free) program has come to OS X. Don’t forget to download the databases under Current Catalogs. |
| ccdPlace |
For imaging with ALTA CCD cameras. The current version is used mainly by professionals, and it is free. Future versions will reportedly support CCD, CMOS, and DSLR cameras from a variety of vendors, and will not be free. There is no web site for this software at this time. E-mail Georg Tuparev at ccdplace-support@tuparev.com to get a copy. |
| Celestia * |
3D Solar-System and space simulation. Free. |
| Clear-Sky Clock Widget *** |
OS X Widget from the creator of Equinox. Free. |
| Clear Sky Clock for iPhone *** |
Read about it here, download it free from the iTunes App Store. |
| DarkAdapted X ** |
Now free. Turns your display red or green and dims it to preserve night
vision. |
| Einstein@Home |
Help in the search for gravity waves. “Einstein@home
is a program that uses your computer's idle time to search for spinning
neutron stars (also called pulsars) using data from the LIGO and
GEO gravitational wave detectors.” Free. |
| Equinox *** |
From Darryl Robertson of Microprojects. Planetarium program with telescope, webcam, and focuser control. Webcam autoguiding is supported. Powerful features, but easy to use thanks to a well designed user interface. Darryl provides excellent support for Equinox and Equinox Image (immediately below). |
| Equinox Image *** |
Also from Darryl Robertson of . It used to be that Equinox (above) controlled both telescopes and SBIG CCD cameras. Darryl wisely split the tasks and ended up with better software. The Equinox Image web page says “Equinox Image controls Santa Barbara Instrument Group (SBIG) CCD cameras (grey scale and color) and Optec, RoboFocus and JMI focusers. This program also controls SBIG filter wheels, AO devices and remote guide heads. Auto focus, FWHM, Photometry, Astrometry, RMS error, color enhancement and format conversion functions are available. Tools exist to dark subtract, align and stack images, composite color, drift scan (TDI) and program up to ten image sequences.” |
| iAstroPhoto * |
Focusing assistance for Canon digital SLR’s.
The author was inspired by DSLR
Focus for Windows. The 20D is supported, but Canon cameras after the 20D are not supported. Author Steve Bryson is apparently too busy with his day job to continue development. |
| iCCD |
Contol Starlight Express CCD cameras.
See the U.K.
manufacturer’s site and the U.S.
distributor’s site. iCCD is the work of
Jeff Terry, who was the organizer of The
Macintosh Astronomy Workshop I that was held at the Illinois
Institute of Technology in Chicago on September 8, 2005. I attended. |
| ImageJ |
An image processing app from the National Institutes
of Health. Originally Mac-only, it is available as an installable
Mac app, or as a cross-platform Java app. Free. |
| iOXperts * |
FireWire and USB webcam drivers for OS X; also an
802.11 driver for otherwise unsupported cards in a PowerBook. |
| IRAF |
Mactel beta available. “IRAF is the Image
Reduction and Analysis Facility, a general purpose
software system for the reduction and analysis of scientific
data. IRAF is written and supported by the IRAF programming group
at the National Optical Astronomy Observatories (NOAO) in Tucson,
Arizona. IRAF includes a good selection of programs for general
image processing and graphics applications, plus a large number
of programs for the reduction and analysis of optical astronomy
data within the NOAO package.” In other words, IRAF is
professional-grade astronomical image processing software. IRAF
is available as an OS X package (easy install) or as Unix application
to be used under Apple’s
X11 environment. The Mac package download is here;
general information is
here, and a very
good FAQ is here.
This is serious software with a serious learning curve. |
| Keith’s
AstroImager |
Webcam control and autoguiding (for Meade LX200-compatible
telescopes). Free. |
| Keith’s Image Stacker * |
Recently updated for Intel Macs and Leopard. Stacking and combining of still images or QuickTime
videos. $15 and worth every penny! |
| Lynkeos * |
Stacking and combining of still images or QuickTime
videos. Free. |
| The MacDob Project |
Works with third-party servo hardware to control
a Dobsonian telescope (“Dob”). Can even control a Dob
via a bluetooth-enabled cell phone! |
| Mars24 * |
Java-based sunclock for Mars, showing graphical
representations of the planet’s position relative to Earth.
Also available: Titan24.
Free from NASA. |
| MoonMenu *** |
August, 2008: Finally, an update! Displays information on current, past, and future
lunar phases. |
| Nebulosity *** |
One of the best Mac image-capture and processing apps. Craig Stark, PhD, writes “Nebulosity (Windows and OS X) is designed to be a powerful, but simple-to-use capture and processing application for a wide range of astronomy CCD cameras. Many cameras are supported for capture... and images from just about anything can be processed (support for many FITS formats, PNG, TIFF, JPEG, CR2/CRW, etc).” |
| Observing Logs |
Various observing logs in database format. Free. |
| PhD Guiding *** |
This is another great piece of software from Craig Stark, who says “PHD Guiding is designed to be ‘Push Here Dummy’ simple, yet provide powerful, intelligent auto-guiding of your telescope for both PCs and Macs. Connect your mount, your camera, select a star, and start guiding. That's it! ...In PHD Guiding, all calibration is taken care of automatically. You do not need to tell it anything about the orientation of your camera, nor do you need to tell it anything about the image scale. The automatic calibration routine takes care of this for you. Odds are you won't ever need to set a single parameter. Just select your star and hit "PHD Guide" and let the software take care of it. ” Guides through ShoeString Astronomy's GPUSB adapter. |
| Pixinsight ** |
Pixinsight is astro-image processing software that came to the Mac in December, 2008. It is world-class software—the most advanced astro-image processing application released for the Mac to date. The interface is not very Mac-like, and the learning curve is made a bit steeper by the lack of documentation, but Pixinsight touts their forums as the source for help. Dr. Craig Stark, himself an author of excellent Mac imaging software (see Nebulosity and PHD Guider) has put a couple of Pixinsight video tutorials at http://www.stark-labs.com/blog/files/PITutorials.php. Also see Craig's blog at http://www.stark-labs.com/blog/blog.php. |
| SAO Image DS9 |
Free from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory at Harvard. “SAOImage DS9 is an astronomical imaging and data visualization application. DS9 supports FITS images and binary tables, multiple frame buffers, region manipulation, and many scale algorithms and colormaps. It provides for easy communication with external analysis tasks and is highly configurable and extensible.” |
| Scope Calculator * |
Calculates and compares field of view, magnification,
and exit-pupil size for telescope eyepieces. Free. |
| Scope Driver |
The developer says “ScopeDriver lets you connect your computer to your astronomical telescope. ... You can control your telescope from the comfort of indoors, or even across the Internet. You can also plan your observing in advance, on your computer, then instruct your telescope to take you on a tour of these objects, and log your observations from within the ScopeDriver package. ScopeDriver can also control a camera via a serial shutter control, completely automating observing patrols and sky surveys. |
| Seeker ** |
Software Bisque’s web site says “Seeker is a multi-platform (Macintosh OS X Universal and Windows XP/Vista) application that provides an immersive three dimensional simulation of our solar system. Experience simulated "space flight" and explore the Sun, planets, moons, comets, asteroids, interplanetary spacecraft and earth-orbiting satellites with stunning realism.” I have it, and I like it. |
TheSkyX Student Edition from
Software Bisque *** |
Planetarium program. Software
Bisque has committed to bringing its software—TheSky, CCDSoft,
and TPoint—to the Mac as Universal Binaries. TheSky X Student Edition was first. It lacks telescope control. Look for an update offering telescope control sometime in 2008. Eventually CCDSoft and TPoint will be released, not as separate applications as they are (in the Windows domain now), but as extra-cost modules in TheSkyX. TheSkyX is not a port of a Windows app. It represents the first fruit of a complete rewrite of all of Software Bisque’s software. |
| TheSkyX Widget ** |
A very nice planetarium widget based on TheSkyX. Free. |
| Stargazer’s Delight |
Planetarium program; runs natively under OS X and
OS 8.1 and above. |
| Starlink *** |
I hesitated before listing Starlink here because it is part of the Fishcamp Engineering’s Starfish Guide Camera package. I bought a Starlfish in November, 2008, however, and I found the Starfish and Starlink combination provided excellent guiding. I have not had a lot of experience with Starlink due to inclement weather, but I expect to be a frequent user. |
| Starry
Night Pro ** |
Planetarium and telescope control. Very elaborate very good,
with a bit too much eye candy for my taste. |
| Stellarium * |
Free planetarium program, noted for its beauty. Not for heavy-duty observing, I think, but good for finding out what’s up. |
| Sun Spotter * |
August 2008: Sun Spotter has been upgraded recently. A tool for grabbing the latest
white-light image of the Sun, taken from the SOHO web site. The image
corresponds to the sort of view you would see using a telescope equipped
with a standard solar filter. Some brief notes are included to explain
what it is you're looking at. Intended for amateur astronomers and
teachers/students interested in the Sun. Free. |
| Voyager * |
Planetarium and telescope control. Voyager was the first such program I used on a Mac long before OS X days. Carina Software took years to update Vopyager and did not communicate with their customers, so I moved on. |
| Where is M13? * |
Planetarium software and printed
charts and books will tell you a great deal about deep-sky objects,
but they don’t
show you where an object is in the Milky Way relative to the Earth
(or outside the Milky Way, as is the case with other galaxies.) That’s
where
Where is M13? comes in. It helps you visualize the 3-D locations
in addition to the physical properties of common deep sky
objects. A nice feature is that you can choose relative or absolute
data about an object.
Where is M13? formerly cost
$19, but author Bill Tschumy has made it freeware. Where
is M13? is available for Mac OS (Universal Binary), Linux/Unix,
and Windows. |
| XEphem ** |
UNIX planetarium and telescope control. Runs under
Apple’s
X11 environment. Free if you want to compile it yourself, available
as a Mac OS X package installer for a modest fee. This is an extremely
powerful application that is worth the time required to learn to use
its various options and functions. |
