The sky in your computer

Classification of the programs

Before the great variety of programs found in Internet, one prevails to establish a classification of such in different categories. In the first place, we will classify the programs depending on necessary the operating system for its use in different groups: thus, we found programs for MSDOS and Windows (to which we will include within a same category since this operating system generally allows to execute programs MSDOS), for Mac, BeOS, portable devices (PalmPC) and Linux. Finally, and independent of the used operating system, we found a list of programs of Astronomy written in language BASIC and, in the following section, a classification of resources available in Internet like Java applet and other directions where we can find programs or servants FTP.

As far as possible and whenever the amount of programs is too bulky, we will use the following categories within each one of the previous groups:

• Computational astrophysics
• Planetariums and celestial charts
• Ephemeris
• Education and multimedia
• Analysis and image processing of data
• Satellite tracking
• Space simulation
• Tools and utilities for the observation

Finally, some important observations: first it is that this classification, to the force, cannot be closed: there are programs that do not fit in a category in concrete or can belong to two categories. On the other hand, because some programs are available for more of an operating system, these will appear detailed in each one of the groups; equal it will happen when, due to the characteristics of the program, it is difficult to fit it in a single category. And, finally, if we did not find any program in some of the previous categories, this one will not appear listed within the group of programs for that operating system.

  Copyright © 2003 Javier Sánchez Quirós