Talk: Open Source Software For Astronomy

On October 2nd, 2017, I gave a talk at the KWLUG on Open Source Software for Astronomy.

The software programs demonstrated in this talk include the following:

• SkyChart, Cartes du Ciel, a very extensive planetarium.
• KStars (includes Ekos), another planetarium.
• INDI, a device driver standard for many astronomical equipment such as equatorial mounts, focusers, CCDs, domes, and more.
• Stellarium, a planetarium with the most realistic look of the sky.
• Astrometry intefrace for identifying stars and deriving coordinates for images of the sky.

And, using the astrometry plate solving features in Ekos, one can precisely align the telescope, and automate the process of taking images of objects in the sky.

Also mentioned, the Android version of some of the above: KStars Lite in Google Play (Free), and Stellarium Mobile in Google Play (small fee).

The slides are attached below, in PDF format.

You can listen to the to the podcast, or the unclipped podcast, for when the video is posted.