Asteroid occultation events
LinOccult
Observations of stellar occultation by asteroids will make significant
impact in several areas of astronomy. Observations of these events by
professional and amateur astronomers are extremly important since
thay can provide unique information about the size of asteroids
and improve their orbit elements dramatically.
LinOccult computes predictions of such occultation of stars by asteroids.
LinOccult has been developed for Linux and distributed
in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
New LinOccult 1.0.0beta features:
- Performance was improved 5 - 10 times by using kdtree algorithm
in star searching procedure
- MySQL database support was added
- Results are stored in internal database
- New text and pdf output format has been developed and implemented.
- List of sites is now supported. Each site may have is own restrictions -
minimal duration, maximal star magnitude, minimal probability and so on
- Several bugs were fixed
- New configuration parameters and many internal improvements were implemented
New LinOccult 1.1.0 features:
- Using asteroid orbit elements from Steve Preston and Jan Manek updates to improve predictions accuracy.
- To represent calculated data in user-friendly format new HTML occultations list output was developed.
- Processing range of asteroids was added.
- Processing stars with magnitude not more than MaxMv was added.
- Star parallax processing was added.
- Star coordinates and magnitude parameters were added to configuration file.
- Asteroid brightness calculation procedure was corrected.
New LinOccult 1.1.1 features:
- New astorb.dat format with 6 digits for asteroid number
New LinOccult 2.0.0 changes:
- All libraries and application code were updated to use "pure" C++ code with namespaces, streams and STL.
- Obsolete code was removed.
- Vector and matrix ariphmetics, integration and Chebyshev polynomials were moved to mathematical library.
- Structure of input/output library was changed.
- New input/output formats were added to use in OrbSearch.
- Two new libraries were added: APSAstroData for astronomical databases and APSAstroAlg
for astronomical algorithms.
- Some minor bugs were fixed.
- Calculation of preliminary events was changed.
New LinOccult 2.1.0 changes:
- Make files were added.
- Compilation problems in Ubuntu 8.10 were fixed.
- Output format for OccultWatcher was added.
- Several bugs were fixed.
New LinOccult 2.1.1 changes:
- Bug was fixed in output to OccultWatcher.
- Uncertainty of star position was added to asteroid uncertainty.
New LinOccult 2.2.0 beta changes:
- Migration to 64 bit platforms.
- Some code updates to comply with modern compilers.
- In kdtree float was changed to double.
New LinOccult 2.3.0 changes:
- Gaia catalog is used instead of Tycho2.
- Stars position calculation was improved.
To compute time and coordinates of occultation events
you need the following data:
- DE405 - Major planets ephemeris.
- Star catalog(s).
- astorb.dat - asteroid orbits.
To display occultation coordinates on Earth surface you need to have
the following applicatons:
- PovRay.
- EarthView.
To create pdf output you should have a TeTeX.
LinOccult is a stand alone program and can be loaded by the
following command:
./linoccult ConfigFile
Technical details:
LinOccult use DE405 precomputed major planets ephemeris to precise numerical
integration of asteroid orbit. User can select asteroids to process by
changing several parameters in configuration file.
TODO list:
- To develop a GUI.
- To create a make files.
Plekhanov Andrey
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