!StarCatMapper

Over Xmas I finally got around to writing something I’d wanted to do for ages. The result is…

!StarCatMapper.

This is an application that generates a ‘whole sky’ star map as a DrawFile. By default it is designed to make a DrawFile that can be converted at 100% scale into a screen backdrop. But the user can alter the width, height, number of stars plotted, etc, as they choose.

It uses DrawGen, so is available from the DrawGen webpage at

http://jcgl.orpheusweb.co.uk/DrawGen/dgen.html

Source code is provided, and anyone interested is welcome to use/modify as they please.

Happy Hogmanay :-)

Jim Lesurf

Update: Someone discovered that !Draw had a problem with the DrawFiles generated by the original release. (I only use !Vector and !ArtWorks, so hadn’t noticed this, alas.) However I think this problem is now fixed. So I’ve replaced the original release (Version 0.50) with an updated one (0.51).

The problem seems to be that I was writing names into the strings that included a trailing return char. !Draw seems not to like this, but !Vector and !ArtWorks aren’t bothered.

So I’ve replaced the original release (Version 0.50) with an updated one (0.51).

Had you considered putting in a configuration GUI for the dimensions and numbers of objects etc?

Most of the work on such things can be done by utilising the facilities in Confix from XAT.

One likely to tax you a little is generating a specific view for a time of day, direction of view and place on the globe.

For some reason, the name made me thing it was creating maps from *cat command!

For some reason, the name made me thing it was creating maps from *cat command!

Star Catalogue indeed, just a wider view.

No, I gave up on trying to write anything much using a desktop gui many years ago. Simpler to use a TaskWindow as this is essentially just chugging though a database.

I have thought of adding ephermerals (planets, etc) as well as things like
a) Select a specific area of sky to ‘zoom’ on to.
b) Use a different ‘projection’.
c) underlay with the ‘NGC’ objects.

But its a matter of the supply of ‘round tuits’. FWIW Currently mainly interested in “something completely different”, i.e. adding to:

http://jcgl.orpheusweb.co.uk/history/ups_and_downs.html

and also at present writing a magazine article that is overdue.

However as usual I include the source code, and anyone interest is welcome to nick bits from that, alter it, add things, and do their own better program. For me this was an ‘Xmas treat’ project as I’ve wanted for ages to do it and get some pretty backdrops from the results. So here I’ve run !StarCatMapper, then tweaked a few of the name locations to avoid overlaps, etc, then passed the result thought !ArtWorks → bitmap → !TheAppWeCantCallImageMaster → sharpen → use as a backdrop.

…or did you mean I should add control over more variables via the ‘settings’ file? (I did it this way to avoid the user having to type in loads of numbers every time they ran the program.)

BTW there is a ‘free book’ (PDF version) available from the url I gave for ‘ups and downs’. It is about Information and Measurement, so may interest some here. But it doesn’t have much to do with star plotting. The book does have programs in BBC BASIC, etc, though. :-)

…or did you mean I should add control over more variables via the ‘settings’ file? (I did it this way to avoid the user having to type in loads of numbers every time they ran the program.)

What I was suggesting is a setup where the program generates an iconbar icon with three options Quit, Run (runs your current routine to generate a draw file), and Configure (which runs !Confix).
All the GUI generation for the menus, tabs etc is done by !Confix which reads/writes a simple text file.

http://jcgl.orpheusweb.co.uk/history/ups_and_downs.html

At the time Plessey’s laboratories at Towcester were producing some experimental mm-wave Impatt diodes. So we arranged to co-operate with them. They agreed to supply impatt diodes which should provide output at around 100 GHz.

Coo, same time period I was there and persuaded a young lady to use the devices under test to cook spuds.
No point in wasting all that power :)

PS. The paragraph “Two possibly types of solid state oscillator device” has a possible typo possibly.

OK, I’ll have a look at !Confix. :-) At present I’m taking photos of an ancient radio, though, but its on my list…

Did you know Nigel Couch, etc? Their diodes were excellent, although the ones from Nottingham Uni. drove some of what came next precisely because they were less well behaved!

Alas, typos are a, erm, ‘feature’, of my writing. Think of them as a trademark. 8-] I do try to find and fix them, but the little boogers seem to reappear as fast as I find them.

Early Diode – ‘Coherer’ :-)

Heathy New Year – all.

Did you know Nigel Couch, etc?

No, just a small episode in my short time there.
Also found a batch fault on a batch of hex buffer chips that was totally stopping production of System X.¹ Never really got into working in production.

Alas, typos are a, erm, ‘feature’, of my writing.

Me too. This is on a laptop with Firefox and an online spelling / grammar checker. I sometimes disagree with it but it highlights lots of typos. It’s having a fit about “are a, erm, ‘feature’”

¹Working on TXE4 test (next bay) I was nosing at a problem they had with noisy power rails all over the board on many boards instead of running another batch of tests on TXE4 ferrite core memory boards.
Stage 1. Head of System X test allowed me to look and comment as they were out of ideas. I suggested more smoothing caps across the rails until the fault went away. Then follow that with a scope slid along the rails looking for peaks in the noise still present.
My unorthodox test/trace showed peaks of generated noise on power rails at various chips on the board which, unsuppressed, generated faults in various other places. Not a result was the opinion of HoSXT.

Along the lines of ‘coherer’, I recently mended my 40+ year old Tandberg TP41 radio. It had been misbehaving for a few years but even looking at the circuit diagram, etc (OK, in Norwegian!) I was baffled.

Turned out to be because it uses a ‘stabistor’. A device I’d never heard of before! Now unobtainium. The symbol in the diagram makes it look like an electrolytic capacitor or tiny cell! Replaced with a small red LED, and radio fixed. I was only able to diagnose this after someone else told me the magic word ‘stabistor’ and a web search then let me find out what the problem was.

The Gunn diodes we got from GEC were good. Nottingham made ‘quantum well’ and ‘multiple barrier’ devices, but too large for real mm-wave use. However many exhibited ‘chaotic’ and ‘semi-chaotic’ behaviour. Not good for our original purposes… but turned out excellent as it got us into using the effects as pseudo noise sources and ‘encoding’ devices. Main topic of the next page of my biog.

Just spotted another bug. In version 0.51 if you ask for more than 213 names some of the names get corrupted, and again, this irritates !Draw, !Vector, etc.
Caused by some stars not having a ‘constellation’ and my failing to clear a buffer. I’ll put up a fixed version shortly as version 0.52.