libnova v 0.15.0

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libnova

Celestial Mechanics, Astrometry and Astrodynamics Library

# Introduction

libnova is a general purpose, double precision, Celestial Mechanics, Astrometry and Astrodynamics library.

The intended audience of libnova is C / C++ programmers, astronomers and anyone else interested in calculating positions of astronomical objects or celestial mechanics. libnova is the calculation engine used by the Nova project and most importantly, is free software.

# Features

The current version of libnova can calculate:

- Aberration
- Nutation
- Apparent Position
- Dynamical Time
- Julian Day
- Precession
- Proper Motion
- Sidereal Time
- Solar Coordinates (using VSOP87)
- Coordinate Transformations
- Planetary Positions Mercury - Pluto (Mercury - Neptune using VSOP87)
- Planetary Magnitude, illuminated disk and phase angle.
- Lunar Position (using ELP82), phase angle.
- Elliptic Motion of bodies (Asteroid + Comet positional and orbit data)
- Asteroid + Comet magnitudes
- Parabolic Motion of bodies (Comet positional data)
- Orbit velocities and lengths
- Atmospheric refraction
- Rise, Set and Transit times.
- Semidiameters of the Sun, Moon, Planets and asteroids.
- Angular separation of bodies
- Hyperbolic motion of bodies
- Heliocentric (barycentric) time correction

# Documentation

API documentation for libnova is included in the source. It can also be found in this website and an offline tarball is available here.

# Download

The latest released version of libnova is 0.13.0 It is available for download here.

# CVS

The latest CVS version of libnova is available via CVS here.

# Licence

libnova is released under the GNU LGPL.

# Help

If you are interested in helping in the future development of libnova, then please get in touch. Currently, we are needing help in the folowing areas.

- Documentation. (Not just API reference, but also astronomy info for novice users)
- Programming (in C) astronomical solutions or algorithms.
- Algorithms and Solutions.

# Authors

libnova is maintained by Liam Girdwood and Petr Kubanek.

# Thanks

Thanks to Jean Meeus for most of the algorithms used in this library. From his book "Astronomical Algorithms".

Thanks to Michelle Chapront-Touze and Jean Chapront for publishing the Lunar Solution ELP 2000-82B.

Thanks to Messrs. Bretagnon and Francou for publishing planetary solution VSOP87.

Thanks to everyone who has submitted patches. NOTE: I sufferend a disk failure this year and lost a windows patch. I would be grateful if the author could resubmit it.

Also thanks to Sourceforge for hosting this project.