PalmAstro FAQ: PalmOS Section Brian Tung http://astro.isi.edu/ last updated 9 September 2004 * Added Astromist. * Updated text for a few other applications. ***** Introduction This FAQ is actually just one section of the Palmastro FAQ; the other section covers Windows CE and Pocket PC devices. This one covers PalmOS devices, such as the Palm family of handhelds, the Handspring Visor series, and the Sony Clie. If you use a Casio Cassiopeia, a Hewlett- Packard Jornada, or a Compaq iPaq, those are Pocket PC devices, and you need to consult that FAQ instead. This FAQ section is divided into two parts. The first part consists of some frequently asked questions (hence, FAQ) about using PalmOS devices; these questions are answered informally but as accurately as I can. The second section covers known astronomy and support applications for PalmOS devices, giving quick descriptions of what they do--at times liberally sprinkled with my own personal opinions--and where to find more information about them. I welcome any corrections, suggestions, comments about either section. ***** FAQs Q. What is the approximate operating temperature range for the Palm Pilot (and similar devices)? Q. What is the battery usage for the Palm Pilot? Can I hot swap? Q. How can I protect my night vision when using a Palm Pilot? ***** Q. What is the approximate operating temperature range for the Palm Pilot (and similar devices)? A. Palm and other manufacturers are surprisingly silent about this in the operator's manual. From various reports, it seems that one of the first parts to degrade in cold weather is the liquid crystal display. It will apparently work OK down to about 5 degrees C (about 40 degrees F). From there on down, it slows down and random errors crop up with increasing frequency until about -20 degrees C (about -5 degrees F), at which point it is likely to fail entirely. That does not, of course, mean that you can't use it in cold weather at all. Most of the time, the device ought to reside in your pocket, where it stays much warmer than ambient, and you pull it out only for brief periods of time. (This makes it difficult to use for taking notes, but that's hard to do in very cold weather, anyway.) I haven't yet tried myself, but you probably won't notice any problems with sporadic usage down to at least -5 degrees C (about 20-25 degrees F). Hot weather seems to have a much smaller effect on use, and in any case, is less likely to be a problem for amateur astronomy (nighttime astronomy, at least). Q. What is the battery usage for the Palm Pilot? Can I hot swap? A. Except for the slim models (the Palm V/Vx/m500/m505, or the Sony Clie, or the Handspring Platinum, etc), the models use 2 AAA batteries. How long these last obviously depends a lot on personal usage patterns, but typically they last a couple of weeks to a few weeks. They probably get used up faster in colder weather, but if you keep it close to your body warmth (by putting it in your pocket, for example), that shouldn't be too much of a problem for any given night. It's probably best to bring along a spare set, just the same. Palm claims that its battery swapping has to be done with the unit off, within one minute or less. Many people report that empirically, the leeway you have is considerably longer, perhaps as long as 10 or 20 minutes. (It has an internal capacitor or battery--I'm not sure which, yet--that keeps memory intact during that time.) Q. How can I protect my night vision when using a Palm Pilot? A. Most of the Palm Pilot units (exceptions being the color Palms) use passive LCDs. In order to use them in the dark, you have to turn on the backlighting. This is OK for most ordinary applications, but for dark-sky astronomical use, the backlighting is far too bright--not only for yourself, but possibly even for those observing around you. Some people have suggested using red cellophane or similar material to help maintain your night vision, but in my experience, a simple neutral density filter will do just fine. You can get a sheet of 0.60 neutral density plastic (about the thickness of a transparency); this reduces light by a couple of stops and should do the trick. You may find even this a bit too bright, in which case you can go a little deeper. But I find it sufficient in most cases. In any event, you do have to strike a balance between protecting night vision and being able to see the data on the screen at all. Incidentally, I also tried not using backlighting at all, but just shining a red flashlight on the Palm, much as you would an ordinary sky atlas. I'm afraid this wasn't too successful, but perhaps it depends a little on the particular display. If you have a red flashlight anyway, it can't be too much trouble to test it out. Rod Mollise has an interesting idea: a GameBoy illuminator/magnifier. Obviously, it's designed for GameBoy use in the dark (or when vision is an issue), but apparently it can by jury-rigged, without too much kludginess, to the Palm devices, too. You can find out more about Rod's idea at http://skywatch.brainiac.com/Palmastro/project1.htm If you have a color Palm, then the unit has a TFT display, rather than a backlit passive display. In that case, you'll probably have to go deeper with the neutral density filter--although exactly how deep I'm not sure. The other possibility is to use something like 2red (see the Software section) that is supposed to make everything deep red, in order to protect your night vision. Not everything plays nice with 2red, people have reported; for example, my PleiadAtlas still puts everything in jarring black and white. (PleiadAtlas now has its own native red mode.) People have also reported that although 2red works as advertised, it may not be totally effective, since Palm color PDAs have a two-pixel white border that cannot be changed (at least not in software). To really protect your night vision, you'll still need a filter. ***** Software 2sky. commercial, planetarium Anapalma. freeware, Sun Astro Info. freeware, planetarium AstroLog. freeware, logging Astromist. shareware, planetarium Jovian. shareware, Jupiter Jup. freeware, Jupiter Lunar. shareware, Moon MarsMap. freeware, Mars Moon. shareware, Moon Moon Phase. freeware, Moon MoonTool. freeware, Moon NGC!. shareware, DSO database Orrery. shareware, solar system PalmDSC. freeware, DSC Planet 2000. shareware, solar system Planetarium. shareware, planetarium PleiadAtlas. shareware, planetarium PocketSat. demoware, satellites pSatellite. demoware, satellites RiseSet. freeware, Sun, Moon SatMoons. freeware, Saturn Setting Circles. freeware, DSC Sidereal. freeware, timekeeping SiderealTime. shareware, timekeeping Star Pilot. demoware, planetarium Sun-Pal. freeware, Sun TeleFormula. freeware, calculator 2red. shareware, night vision CASL. freeware, run-time support MathLib. freeware, run-time support [Note: Demoware indicates that the application has a free demo that is significantly less abled than the fully registered/purchased version.] ***** Applications 2sky. Formerly known as Pocket Star Atlas, 2sky has a pleasing display and a star database of 15,560 stars down to magnitude 7. It also contains 500 deep-sky objects. The cost of this "Basic" download is $25. In2space, the company responsible for 2sky, also provides a "Total" download version for $40, which contains 214,000 stars down to magnitude 9.5, and the entire NGC/IC. (The old "layer of stars" packages appear to have been phased out.) The home page for 2sky is at http://www.2sky.org/ 2sky used to be shareware, in that you could get a hobbled version of the software in a free download. That appears not to be the case anymore; you must pay for the basic package (which goes much deeper than the shareware version ever did). In September 2004, 2sky v3.0 is planned to appear, with a new stellar database of about 1 million stars. As of this writing, however, it hasn't yet come out. Anapalma. This is a simple application, which gives the equation of time and the declination of the Sun for any given day of the year (February 29 excepted). When these two values are plotted against each other, what results is the figure-8 shape of the analemma, and this is displayed prominently at the center of the screen. As you change the date in the program, a moving dot shows the changing position of the Sun on the analemma. Anapalma can be found at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/other.html Sadly, modesty forbids me from disclosing the name of the author. Astro Compass. See Planet 2000. Astro Info. This capable program gives rise-set times and positions for the Moon, Sun, major planets, and deep sky objects from the Messier and Caldwell catalogues. It gives lunar phase information, including age and percent illumination. It also has a sky map mode, which shows broad swaths of sky, including selected deep sky objects. Impressively, this application is freeware. I haven't yet tried it, but I will add more to this entry when I have. Its home page is at http://astroinfo.sourceforge.net/ AstroLog. This program contains tables for the Messier and NGC objects, and gives information about each object. What's more, each object has a log book associated with it, and you can take your own notes there. You can also record information such as exposure, film, and equipment on any astrophotos that you take throughout the night. You can get more information about AstroLog at http://galaxies.com/astrolog.aspx Astromist. Astromist is one of the more recent entries into the Palm astronomy field. Like PleiadAtlas, it boasts a deep stellar catalogue (2.5 million stars and 18,200 DSOs), and like Planetarium, it provides telescope control for some GOTO models. As such, it tends to be a bit more demanding on the PDA, but for those with enough horsepower in the palm of their hand, so to speak, those features are certainly attractive: More so than the other planetarium programs, Astromist seems to have been written with high-powered devices in mind. Astromist has lots of auxiliary functions on the side, such as a detailed lunar map, a Jovian satellite simulator, two-star alignment procedures, and full-color photos of many DSOs. Astromist is $30 demoware; the free version has much smaller catalogues, and your settings can't be saved. It can be found at http://www.astromist.com/ Its author, Cyrille Thieullet, appears from time to time on the PalmAstro mailing list. J-Moons!, Messier! See Star Pilot. Jovian. This elegant little application shows the dance of the Galilean satellites around Jupiter. The main display gives the telescopic view, and also shows you where the satellites are in their orbits, as seen from slightly above the Jovian plane. Another screen gives you the progress of the Great Red Spot. This same developer is responsible for Lunar and Orrery. Jovian is $11.99 shareware, and its home page is at http://www.astro-metrics.com/Jovian.html Jup. Jup shows the positions of Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, with respect to Jupiter, along with transits and shadow crossings, if any; it also shows where the Great Red Spot is, if it happens to be visible. It is now in v0.5. It sets the GRS longitude to 75 degrees (System II), whereas it's currently 84. I don't know if that can be configured. Jup is freeware, and can be found at http://shallowsky.com/software/shallowsoft/ Lunar. Another lunar application, and a very nicely done one. A realistic greyscale image of the Moon goes through simulated phases as the month progresses. Data fields give you the age of the Moon (from the new Moon), its distance in kilometers, and its percent phase. A separate display shows you where the Moon is in its orbit around the Earth from high above the Earth's north pole. Lunar is also $11.99 shareware, and its home page is at http://www.astro-metrics.com/Lunar.html MarsMap. Based in part on the principles in Mars 2001, MarsMap is a graphical version that shows a tappable map of the visible surface features. The display also shows the correct axial tilt and Martian libration. The program was optimized for the 2001 close approach and opposition, but going back against older records of the 1999 approach, it worked well there, too (coming within a couple of degrees), and it should work approximately as well during the 2003 approach, too. MarsMap is freeware and can be found at http://shallowsky.com/software/mars/ Moon. This is a simple Moon phase calendar. It shows a month at a time, and in each day is a circle showing, graphically, the phase of the Moon for that day. This is $5 shareware, and doesn't have its own home page; however, it is listed on PalmGear at http://www.palmgear.com/software/showsoftware.cfm?&prodID=30 Moon Info! See Star Pilot. Moon Phase. Moon Phase computes the approximate phase and age-of-phase for any given day. It also gives the dates for the next new, first quarter, new, and last quarter Moons. Front and center on the display is the Moon itself. On black-and-white displays, only a circle with the correct phase is given, but the application adapts to better screens and should give a stunning greyscale map on color devices. Moon Phase is freeware. It used to have its own home page, but I can no longer find it. It can be found at http://www.freewarepalm.com/astronomy/moonphase.shtml MoonTool. Similar to Moon Phase, but not as stunning in its graphics on color displays, MoonTool also computes phase information, to somewhat greater precision. (Apparently, though, its accuracy is not as great as its precision.) It also gives the distance to the Moon on any given day; the Moon's orbit has an eccentricity of about 0.05, and its distance therefore varies over a range of about 10 percent as the month proceeds. MoonTool is also freeware; its web page is at http://www.newts.org/pilot/moon/ NGC! From the folks who brought you Star Pilot comes this database of the complete NGC/IC catalogues, totalling over 13,000 objects. For each object is listed the object type, its location, its magnitude, and its size; in addition, if you give it your location on Earth, it will compute its altitude and azimuth, as well as rise/set/transit times. It also allows you to enter a very brief note on your observation of it. (The web site claims about 200 bytes--about 40 words--of notes; it's unclear whether that includes the other fields, such as date and equipment.) You can search and sort the NGC! database for objects by type, location, or magnitude, and export your observation notes to the MemoPad for later viewing. NGC! is $10 shareware; there is a free version that is "feature-limited." The free version doesn't allow you to sort or to export observations. The web page is at http://www.star-pilot.com/ngc/ Orrery. Another attractive application from the developer of Jovian and Lunar. As its name implies, Orrery gives you views of the solar system from high above the ecliptic plane. Since the display is too small to show the entire solar system at once, the application toggles between inner and outer solar system modes. In the inner mode, the planets Mercury through Mars are shown in their orbits around the Sun. In the outer mode, Jupiter through Pluto are shown; the Earth is shown as a dot very close to the Sun, in order to give you a sense of the grand scale of these orbits. A second screen shows you a graphical representation of the rise and set times for the Sun and each of the planets, in order to plan your planet observations. Tapping on each planet then gives you the same information in textual form, for greater precision. Orrery is $11.99 shareware (and well worth it, in my opinion); it can be found at http://www.astro-metrics.com/Orrery.html PalmDSC. This freeware application allows your handheld to interface with any of a number of DSC encoder systems. It uses a catalogue of 40 alignment stars, although you can also align using some of the planets, provided you've set your clock correctly. Once the initial alignment has been completed, PalmDSC can point to any given coordinates, or to any of the included objects: the Messier, Caldwell, and NGC/IC, as well as double stars and the eight major planets. PalmDSC has been designed for use in the field. It places a minimum of reliance on Graffiti; instead, you can operate it just by using the hard buttons: the four application buttons and the two scroll buttons at the bottom of your PDA. It even tells you which objects are near where the telescope is currently pointed. PalmDSC is open source. You can get the program, its source, and the catalogues at http://palmdsc.dougbraun.com/ Planet 2000. This application allows you to compute various characteristics of the classical planets from Mercury to Saturn, including rise-set and transit times, current location. It has a small database of 88 stars which is not used to help one get around the night sky, but only as part of Planet 2000's compass mode, with which one can determine north even when no planets are up. During the daytime, or at night when the Moon or one of the planets is up (and not near the zenith), one can then of course use those bodies to determine compass directions. Planet 2000 also computes features of lunar and solar eclipses, the former between 1999 and 2030, and the latter between 1900 and 2100 (I presume for historical interest). Unlike many Palm astronomy applications, which use the ordinary 1904-2030 time range, Planet 2000 can handle dates between 1600 and 3000; partly, this is because the outer planets are particularly susceptible to perturbations, and those planets are not included here. Just the same, beware of the results for Jupiter and Saturn for more than a few hundred years from now. Planet 2000 is $15 shareware. Its home page is at http://ntserver.ct.astro.it/PmWeb/pm_home_palm.htm This same developer has another application on that page, called Astro Compass, which is similar but somewhat less capable. Astro Compass is $5 shareware. More recently, I've revisited this page, and I'm not sure how one is supposed to download or purchase these programs. Stay tuned. Planetarium. One of the long-standing astronomy applications for the Palm platform, Planetarium is well-regarded for squeezing quite a bit of information into a small screen size. Its most novel feature is its sky compass view, which has 1-1/2 compass roses. This view gives the altitude and azimuth for the Sun, Moon, and planets; the full rose gives the azimuth, and the half rose gives the altitude. It takes a little getting used to, but it certainly is an innovative way of providing the information, and it allows one to use Planetarium as a sort of navigation tool. Planetarium also has a standard sky view, with fully customizable field of view. Planetarium's star database is the Yale Bright Star Catalogue, containing 9,000 stars to about magnitude 6.5, sufficient for unaided-eye stargazing and navigation. It also has optional (and free) catalogues for over 1,000 deep-sky objects. Ordinarily, stars down to magnitude 6.5 aren't enough to navigate to as many as 1,000 DSOs, but Planetarium also supports a variety of computer-controlled GOTO scopes. You'll need to jerry-rig a cable connection (see FAQs above, soon), but I'm told it generally works quite well. (I don't own a GOTO scope, myself.) Planetarium gives ephemerides for the planets and other objects, current information on Jupiter's satellites and Saturn's rings, and even gives magnetic declination for your location. You can add your own custom objects and beam them from device to device. Planetarium is shareware, but is fully enabled. It costs $24 to register. A complete manual, feature list, and registration info can all be found on Planetarium's web page at http://www.aho.ch/pilotplanets/ Planets! See Star Pilot. PleiadAtlas. I'm sure to be somewhat biased in my overview of this application, since I'm the author, but in brief, PleiadAtlas is a star atlas for the Palm platform. In its new version, v2.2 (as of this writing), it shows some 1,450,000 stars down to magnitude 11.5, most of the NGC/IC (about 11,700 DSOs), and the major planets. The cost for this depth is a fairly large memory footprint: the program and its various databases chew up a sizable 5.3 megabytes. Of that total, 4 megabytes form the field star database, and if you're short on space, that can be omitted to run the rest of the program in about 1.4 megabytes. PleiadAtlas has, I'm afraid, a relatively non-slick user interface. That stems from my own personal biases as a computer user, though I've tried my best to make it reasonable to use for the average amateur stargazer. The PleiadAtlas home page, including a user's manual, is at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/ It is $10 shareware. PocketSat. PocketSat fills in a relatively weak spot in astronomy software for the Palm: satellite tracking data. PocketSat takes standard two-line (TLE) data and accurately computes visibility for any satellite for any location on the Earth. It even features real-time plots of satellite tracks. PocketSat is shareware; the demo version is fully operational but only computes ephemerides for five satellites at a time; if you want to add more, you have to either delete some from your existing list, or register the program for unlimited satellites. It costs $12.50 to register. More information on PocketSat can be found on its home page at http://www.bigfattail.com/pocketsat/ pSatellite. This is another satellite tracking application for the Palm. The main display plots a map of the world in Mercator projection; a small circle shows the location of the satellite. Like PocketSat, pSatellite accepts the standard TLE data format. pSatellite is $15 shareware and can be found at http://shop.store.yahoo.com/pilotgearsw/psatellite.html RiseSet. This application computes rise-set and transit times for the Sun and Moon, their current positions in altitude and azimuth, lunar phases, twilight times, and eclipse times. The position can also be shown graphically. Accuracy for the Sun (according to the author) is to within a few seconds; accuracy for the Moon is within about a minute or so. If you have a magnetic compass, RiseSet also gives you the correct compass reading for the Sun and Moon, taking into account the magnetic deviation for your location (barring local disturbances in the magnetic field). RiseSet is freeware; more information on it can be found at http://davidbray.org/palm/ SatMoons SatMoons shows the locations of the brighter Saturnian satellites, as well as the tilt of the rings. Written by the developer of Jup, SatMoons is also freeware, and can be found at http://shallowsky.com/software/shallow.html Setting Circles Setting Circles does the digital work of digital setting circles; you act as the encoders and motors and move the telescope yourself. Just as with GOTO or DSCs, you align on two stars, then afterward, the program allows you to convert coordinates in both ways: you can either give the actual coordinates of an object, and Setting Circles will give you the circle settings that you need to move the scope to, in order to find the object; or you can give the current circle settings, and Setting Circles will tell you where you're pointed. This program is based on a program originally written in BASIC. It requires the CASL run-time library (see below). You can find the download and more information at http://www.davidditch.com/astro/taki/ Sidereal. This application, like the next one, computes the current sidereal time (and any of seven other time and time-related quantities). However, unlike the other, it's freeware and more recent, and according to the author at least, it's more accurate. More information on Sidereal is available on its web page at http://www.edgar-bonet.org/palm/ SiderealTime. This application computes the current sidereal time. This is equal to the right ascension of the meridian and is given in 24-hour form; if the local sidereal time is 0500, then Orion is on the meridian. Local sidereal time varies according to location on the Earth, so SiderealTime requires your longitude. SiderealTime is $8 shareware and its home page is at http://aslan.wheatonma.edu/~glen/sidereal/ Sol! II, Solstice!, Sol System. See Star Pilot. Star Pilot. One of the first astronomy applications available for the Palm platform, Star Pilot's default display is an all-sky view of the current sky. You can tap on any star to get information on that star, zoom in on it, or find its coordinates (in either alt-az or RA-Dec). The stellar information includes name, magnitude, spectral class, coordinates, and distance. Star Pilot also plots the 110 Messier objects and the 8 major planets, aside from the Earth, and all of these are also tappable. Each planet is displayed using its own letter, but somewhat annoyingly, the Messier objects are uniformly displayed--regardless of object type--using the "double-S" section character. (§, if you have an ISO-8859-1 compliant display. It looks like a galaxy, at least.) The zoom factor is configurable, but all it does is make the stars appear bigger and further apart, and here we get to perhaps Star Pilot's biggest weakness: its stellar database. There are only 753 stars in the shareware database, and this expands to only 1,480 stars in the fully registered version. These two databases only go down to about magnitude 4.3 and 4.9, respectively. That's barely enough to get to the unaided-eye limit in urban and bright suburban skies. That's enough, I suppose, for GOTO users, but Star Pilot doesn't yet provide an interface to any GOTO telescopes. (They are considering adding one, though.) Star Pilot comes in two versions: Star Pilot and Star Pilot Advanced. They differ only in the number of side applications packaged along with the main program. The basic version contains only the main program. Star Pilot Plus adds Sol! II (yes, the exclamation point is part of the name), which computes rise-set and twilight times; Moon Info!; Messier!, which computes rise-set times and coordinates for the Messier objects, and permits logging; J-Moons!, which shows the current position of Jupiter's big four satellites; Solstice!, which computes solstices and equinoxes between 1996 and 2005; Sol System, a pocket orrery; and Planets, which computes ephemerides for the planets. The Star Pilot programs all run in either black-and-white, greyscale, or color. The main use of color seems to be approximate indications of stellar spectral classes. Star Pilot can be registered for about $9.95; Advanced for $29.95. Some of the auxiliary applications can also be purchased separately. These prices represent a significant reduction from the older prices (previously $27 and $54, respectively), bringing them back in line with other applications. Star Pilot's web page is at http://www.star-pilot.com/ Sun-Pal. Sun-Pal is a CASL (see below) application that computes the altitude and azimuth of the Sun, rise-set times, and the vernal equinox for the current year. It is freeware and can be found at http://frankscaslpage.home.att.net/source_pages/sunpal.htm TeleFormula. TeleFormula is a free program that will perform several different telescope-related calculations on your PDA. For example, if you give it the focal length of your telescope, and that of an eyepiece, it will compute the magnification yielded when using that eyepiece in that telescope. TeleFormula does not appear to have any fixed web site. However, it can be found (among other places) at http://www.freewarepalm.com/calculator/teleformula.shtml ***** Development Tools and Adjuncts 2red. Palm devices with color displays tend to be on the bright side, and even neutral density or ruby gels may not be completely satisfactory at preserving your night vision. In that case, you may want to try 2red. This utility toggles your application between its ordinary colors and red-on-black, night-vision mode. It doesn't work with quite everything; as an example, for reasons that I don't yet fully understand, it doesn't work with PleiadAtlas. (I'm sure the fault lies with PleiadAtlas, and not with 2red. Anyway, PleiadAtlas v2.0 supports its own native red mode.) 2red is $5 shareware, but the download is fully functional. The registration gives you support and updates. The web page is at http://in2space.com/2red.html CASL. This is pronounced as "castle" (their icon is a castle front gate) and stands for Compact Application Solution Language. It's a high-level programming tool for developing PalmOS applications. CASL programs look a little as though they were written in Pascal. CASL applications then require CASL support to run correctly on the Palm device. The CASL home page is at http://www.caslsoft.com/ and the download page (for getting the required support files) is at http://www.caslsoft.com/download.html MathLib. MathLib is a port of most of the floating-point routines to the Palm platform. As with CASL, a run-time library is required to run programs that include the MathLib routines. The MathLib home page is at http://www.radiks.net/~rhuebner/mathlib.html Toward the bottom of the page is the required download. The ZIP file contains a number of files, but the only one that you need to run the astronomy programs is MathLib.prc. MathLib.prc is also available from many of the Palm application repositories such as palmspot and PalmGear.