Release Nightvision 3.0


F_Slim

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Hello,


maybe you already found it through this post in WizardStan's Java .PND Thread. I tried to "port" Nightvision 3.0 to the Pandora.


I myself cannot write Java, and I don't even have my Pandora yet. I was just curious if I can wrap up a .PND correctly, and just hoped that a shell script to start the .jar is all it takes to make it work on the Pandora.


The only response I got in the german forum said that it gives an error, but (thanks to thatgui) WizardStan tried it and according to him it works (and is a nice peace of software, too ;) ).


I hope here some more people will try it and give some feedback. It should work fine. If it does not, I hope WizardStan (or someone else) can help out to see what's wrong.


Enough about that, what the hell is Nightvision 3.0 ??


From the homepage:


Night Vision is a "planetarium" program that will display the heavens from any location on earth. Viewing options allow the user to control which sky objects to display, which font to use, and manipulation of various star parameters. Time may be set to run at multiple speeds, including backwards. Star charts may be printed.


Night Vision is written in 100% pure Java. This allows it to run on any computer that offers a recent Java Runtime Environment.


Version 3.0 adds:


Solar system window showing planet locations and their orbits


Now licensed under GNU GPL 3 with source code available


http://www.nvastro.com/nvj.html


nvj20.gif



My own opinion: It is a very nice, lightweight planetarium/star chart software. It has some nice and unique features and the controls should be perfect for the Pandora. (It is however not a full 3D-view like Celestia, or a sky-replacement like Stellarium. You should go outside and gaze at the stars with your own eyes, and this program will help you to identify planets, stars, even galaxies.)


You will have to define your location first. The list of cities is not very comprehensive, so you should type in your coordinates (use eg. http://itouchmap.com/latlong.html to look them up).


You can save your settings. They are supposed to be written into an .ini file, which should end up in the applications folder. You can also export the list of cities and add your favorite observing locations there. Maybe someone can test if this really works on the pandora.


Left-click will center the view there. You can drag a box or use z/Z to zoom. Also note the scroll bars for zoom and navigation. You can even add a third one at the top, or switch between RA/DEC or azimuth/elevation scrolling (one of the very cool features). For anything else please refer to the help (does this show up in a new window like it should?)


I don't know how far you can zoom out with the resolution of the Pandora? Can you zoom until you see the full disk of the sky like on a typical sky chart? If not the navigation on the "sky" may be a bit confusing at first. If that is the case maybe try it on your PC on a normal screen to understand what's going on.)


...


what?


...


oh, you want the .PND? Ok, here it is B)

Remember that you also need WizardStan's Java PND
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Haha, yeah F_Slim, I admit this is not the best welcome an app could receive. With all those great releases for the Pandora, it seems it might be easy to get spoiled :)


Thank you for your nice work. I don't know much about stars and constellations, but your app shows again the versatility of the Pandora. I may give it a try, to expand my knowledge about an interesting subject.


Cheers!


Frédéric
 
hey, thx. This sounds very interesting. When I ordered my pandora, this was one of the usecases I had in mind. Can't wait for a bright night.
 
Nightvision works for me now on Hotfix5, but I don't know why exactly. Three possiblities I can come up with:


- restarting the Pandora twice after installing java


- running it from the commandline with with "pnd_run.sh ...". I mad a typo mistake first, so the pnd got mounted but nightvision didn't start. After that I started it from the mounted path.


- a combination of both


Thanks for this cool program, I like it a lot - and it will be of good use on the next campfire occasion :)
 
Oh, good to hear that it works (in principle) also with HF5 ... although it still sounds like HF5 introduced some bug/problems.


Is this known, does it also happen with other .PNDs?


Do other Java-based applets work? (eg. TV-Browser had some problems as well, right?)


Might be usefull to narrow it down a bit, is it a problem with Java, mounting .PNDs in HF5 or just something with this particular .PND?
 
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