I have written an MS Windows program called ObsReduce, which reduces satellite position observations by performing computations on the catalogued coordinates of reference stars. It takes as input the approximate star coordinates, as read from a star chart, and finds their precise coordinates in NASA's Sky2000 Version 4 catalogue, a collection of 299,167 stars to about magnitude 10. ObsReduce supports all three reporting formats in common use: IOD, UK and RDE (Russell Eberst's short form of the UK format.) All applicable R.A. and Dec formats and epochs are supported. Visual magnitude and optical period reporting are fully supported. ObsReduce supports three observational geometries: satellite in-line with reference stars, satellite forming right-angled triangle with reference stars, and appulses. Though the database is Epoch 2000, the program can be easily configured to process inputs in several popular epochs, and the reporting epoch may be different from the input epoch. Here is a screenshot: http://www.satobs.org/programs/ObsReduce.jpg For complete details, please see the ReadMe file: http://www.satobs.org/programs/ReadMe.html The program is designed for MS Windows 9X, NT, 2000 and XP. It has undergone limited testing on Windows 98, 2000 and XP systems. I am looking for a few positional observers to beta-test the program. It is about a 9 MB download (most of that is the stars file). If interested, please contact me by e-mail. Ted Molczan ----------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from SeeSat-L, send a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@satobs.org List archived at http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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