The KStars Handbook Jason Harris, Jasem Mutlaq, James Bowlin, Heiko Evermann, Thomas Kabelmann, Pablo de Vicente, Carsten Niehaus, and Mark Holloman The KStars Handbook 2 Contents 1 Introduction 1 2 A Quick Tour of KStars 3 2.1 The Setup Wizard . 4 2.2 Have a Look Around . 4 2.3 Objects in the Sky . 5 2.3.1 The Popup Menu . 5 2.3.2 Finding Objects . 7 2.3.3 Centering and Tracking . 9 2.3.4 Keyboard Actions . 9 2.4 End of the Tour . 10 3 Configuring KStars 11 3.1 Setting the Geographic Location . 11 3.2 Setting the Time . 12 3.3 The Configure KStars Window . 13 3.4 Customizing the Display . 15 4 Command Reference 18 4.1 Menu Commands . 18 4.1.1 File Menu . 18 4.1.2 Time Menu . 18 4.1.3 Pointing Menu . 19 4.1.4 View Menu . 19 4.1.5 Devices Menu . 19 4.1.6 Tools Menu . 20 4.1.7 Settings Menu . 20 The KStars Handbook 4.1.8 Help Menu . 21 4.1.9 Popup Menu . 21 4.2 Keyboard Commands . 22 4.2.1 Navigation Keys . 22 4.2.2 Menu Shortcuts . 23 4.2.3 Actions for the Selected Object . 23 4.2.4 Tools Shortcuts . 24 4.3 Mouse Commands . 24 5 The AstroInfo Project 26 5.1 AstroInfo: Table of Contents . 26 5.2 Celestial Coordinate Systems . 27 5.2.1 The Equatorial Coordinate System . 28 5.2.2 The Horizontal Coordinate System . 28 5.2.3 The Ecliptic Coordinate System . 29 5.2.4 The Galactic Coordinate System . 29 5.3 The Celestial Equator . 29 5.4 The Celestial Poles . 29 5.5 The Celestial Sphere . 30 5.6 The Ecliptic . 30 5.7 The Equinoxes . 31 5.8 Geographic Coordinates . 32 5.9 Great Circles . 32 5.10 The Horizon . 33 5.11 Hour Angle . 33 5.12 The Local Meridian . 33 5.13 Precession . 34 5.14 The Zenith . 34 5.15 Julian Day . 35 5.16 Leap Years . 35 5.17 Sidereal Time . 36 5.18 Time Zones . 38 5.19 Universal Time . 38 5.20 Blackbody Radiation . 39 5.21 Dark Matter . 41 5.22 Flux . 43 4 The KStars Handbook 5.23 Luminosity . 44 5.24 Parallax . 45 5.25 Retrograde Motion . 46 5.26 Elliptical Galaxies . 47 5.27 Spiral Galaxies . 48 5.28 Magnitude Scale . 49 5.29 Stars: An Introductory FAQ . 51 5.30 Star Colors and Temperatures . 52 6 KStars Tools 55 6.1 Object Details Window . 56 6.2 The Astrocalculator . 57 6.2.1 Angular Distance module . 59 6.2.2 Apparent Coordinates module . 60 6.2.3 Ecliptic Coordinates module . 61 6.2.4 Equatorial/Galactic Coordinates module . 62 6.2.5 Horizontal Coordinates module . 63 6.2.6 Precession module . 64 6.2.7 Geodetic Coordinates module . 65 6.2.8 Planet Coordinates module . 66 6.2.9 Day Duration module . 67 6.2.10 Equinoxes and Solstices module . 68 6.2.11 Julian Day module . 69 6.2.12 Sidereal Time module . 70 6.3 AAVSO Light Curves . 71 6.3.1 Introduction . 71 6.3.2 About Variable Stars . 72 6.3.3 The Data . 73 6.3.4 Updating your local copy of Variable Stars . 73 6.4 Altitude vs. Time Tool . 74 6.5 What’s Up Tonight? Tool . 76 6.6 The Script Builder Tool . 77 6.6.1 Introduction to the Script Builder . 77 6.6.2 Using the Script Builder . 79 6.7 Solar System Viewer . 81 6.8 Jupiter Moons Tool . 84 6.9 Observing List Tool . 85 6.10 FITS Viewer Tool . 86 5 The KStars Handbook 7 Command-Line mode for Image Generation 89 8 Astronomical Device Control with INDI 90 8.1 INDI Setup . 92 8.2 Telescope Setup . 93 8.3 CCD and Video-Capture Setup . 97 8.4 Capture Image Sequence . 98 8.5 Configure INDI . 99 8.6 INDI Concepts . 100 8.7 Remote Device Control . 101 8.7.1 Running an INDI server from the command line . 103 8.7.2 Secure Remote Operation . 103 8.8 INDI Frequently Asked Questions . 104 9 Questions and Answers 106 10 Credits and License 110 A Installation 112 A.1 How to obtain KStars . 112 A.2 Requirements . 112 A.3 Compilation and Installation . 113 A.4 Configuration . 113 B Index 114 6 The KStars Handbook List of Tables 8.2 Supported Telescopes . 90 8.4 Supported Focusers . 91 8.6 Supported CCDs . 91 8.8 Supported Filter Wheels . 91 8.10 Supported Webcams . 91 8.12 INDI State color code . 101 7 Abstract KStars is a graphical desktop planetarium for KDE. It depicts an accurate sim- ulation of the night sky, including stars, constellations, star clusters, nebulae, galaxies, all planets, the Sun, the Moon, comets and asteroids. You can see the sky as it appears from any location on Earth, on any date. The user interface is highly intuitive and flexible; the display can be panned and zoomed with the mouse, and you can easily identify objects, and track their motion across the sky. KStars includes many powerful features, yet the interface is clean and simple, and fun to use. The KStars Handbook Chapter 1 Introduction KStars lets you explore the night sky from the comfort of your computer chair. It provides an accurate graphical representation of the night sky for any date, from any location on Earth. The display includes 126,000 stars to 9th magni- tude (well below the naked-eye limit), 13,000 deep-sky objects (Messier, NGC, and IC catalogs), all planets, the Sun and Moon, hundreds of comets and as- teroids, the Milky Way, 88 constellations, and guide lines such as the celestial equator, the horizon and the ecliptic. However, KStars is more than a simple night-sky simulator. The display pro- vides a compelling interface to a number of tools with which you can learn more about astronomy and the night sky. There is a context-sensitive popup menu attached to each displayed object, which displays object-specific infor- mation and actions. Hundreds of objects provide links in their popup menus to informative web pages and beautiful images taken by the Hubble Space Tele- scope and other observatories. From an object’s popup menu, you can open its Detailed Information Window, where you can examine positional data about the object, and query a huge trea- sury of online databases for professional-grade astronomical data and litera- ture references about the object. You can even attach your own internet links, images and text notes, making KStars a graphical front-end to your observing logs and your personal astronomical notebook. Our Astrocalculator tool provides direct access to many of the algorithms the program uses behind the scenes, including coordinate converters and time cal- culators. The AAVSO Lightcurve Generator tool will download a.