January 2013
pyargocat: Argo Navis Catalog manager in Python
pyargocat is a small simple Python script that can be used to program the catalogs of the Argo Navis Digital Telescope Computer from a machine with a recent Python interpreter installed using the RS232 cable that you can either buy or easily construct yourself. pyargocat can manage, that is insert to the device, all three types of catalogs in the device (asteroids, comets and user defined objects), report the number of objects present, report available space and delete previously flashed catalogs. It can be used on any machine with a Python >= 2.7 installed and it has been tested on Linux and Windows machines. The imported catalogs have to be in the standard format Argo Navis uses (please refeer to the Argo Navis manual for the details and for links to useful resources). As an example and as a possible useful addition for your advanced observing sessions you can download this sample file I created that I often use as a basis: fede-general.txt. (the file contains all the Abell planetaries, the complete ARP catalog of Peculiar galaxies, the Hickinson galaxy groups catalog, most of the PK Planetary Nebula catalog and a selection of particullar globular clusters such as the Palomars and Terzans). Also a comet database file is given as an example with the most interesting comet objects data at the time of writing: Comets.txt Download: pyargocat-0.1.tar.gz.
Argo Navis Astronomy Linux Linux Desktop Python Science
3 minutes