In this section we offer a number of software programs specifically for the comet observer, and astrophotographer of both comets and deep sky objects. Much of it has been written specifically for this web site, and has been thoroughly tested by the author.
Make star trail images from hundreds of separate exposures with your DSLR:
Star Trails Photoshop Action here
All New Photoshop CS and CS2 actions for astronomical images.
1. Power Saturate Using advanced masking techniques, this action increases the saturation of stars and the subject, while lowering the color noise and gradients in the skybackground.
2. Power Detail Extract With very advanced detail extraction methods, will bring up the fine details of deep sky objects, WITHOUT AFFECTING THE STARS significantly.
3. Galaxy Dust Enhance A Very advanced method that brings out the dark dust lane details in Galaxies WITHOUT AFFECTING THE STARS.
More Photoshop Actions:
Startrails.atn Automatically stacks hundreds of DSLR frames to make star trails
TestStrip Test Print for Photoshop 7 (Chris Schur) An action pallete for Photoshop to generate a brightness array test print to help in printing astroimages. The numbers under the images are the percent slider values to use in the Photoshop brightness adjust settings.
Dos Software for Astronomical Applications
CROSSING.EXE (By John O'farrel) This DOS program calculates the exact date of the Earth crossing into the orbital plane of a comet. Only the Longitude of the Ascending Node is needed for input, and two dates for the comming year are displayed. On these dates the potential for a comet to exhibit an anti tail is maximized. (35.8Kb)
COMCROSS.EXE (John O'farrel) This DOS program caluclates the exact date that a comet will pass into the orbital plane of the earth - ecliptic crossing. A few orbital elements are input, and the two dates closest to the year of interest are displayed. This can be useful to determine when a comets path takes it through the eclliptic. (36.6Kb)
CLOSEST.EXE (By John O'farrel) This DOS program calculates two things. First, the date of closest approach of a comet or asteroid to the earth in a two year window centered on the selected date. Second, it also provides the distance itself at closest approach in astronomical units.