Notices

Shouldnt sell yourself short based on your age. Its almost age descrimation against yourself.

alephito:

You are the first one to indicate that you are using an N810, so I have two things to say:

1) I have no idea if the 'GPS' code that is present is compatible with the GPS receiver of the N810. I will depend on others with an N810 to indicate if they have been successful or not.

2) I need error messages to help indicate why the program crashed -- you will need to run the program in a terminal session (i.e. python mephemeris) so that we can see what the actual Python error message is.

Note that I am presently 'moving' from one city to another, and my main computer is no longer with me -- so it may hamper my ability to help for the next little while

Well, then; can you do that, please?

Ok. How do I do it? Sorry, but I'm new to all this.

Hmmm...I don't think that I am necessarily the best one to explain how to use 'xterm' and shell commands for the purpose of helping you with mephemeris, but the basics are:

1) Install 'xterm' application (using gronmayer repository search site to look for it?)
2) Run 'xterm' application
3) Type the command '/usr/bin/mephemeris'
4) Write down and report the messages that occur when the application crashes

For myself, I use 'ssh' to connect wirelessly to my N800 for stuff like this -- since it gives me a nice big screen (my desktop monitor) rather than trying to use the tiny screen on the N800 -- but that is something that you might not be ready for yet

Thanks. I know how to do all that. Even the 'ssh' thing (since today, actually).

I need to have my N810 in open sky (to get a GPS fix) so I cannot try it now. But I will.

Update to this thread...

Recently I upgraded my 'Mephemeris' program from version 0.36 to 0.40. See the 'README' file link mentioned in the link at the top of this thread for more info if interested. Note that I also updated the link in that posting to reflect the new Googlepages home for my N8x0 software. Someday I will be brave enough to upload my stuff to a repository

The package is MUCH larger than it was originally. The main reason is that I created a much larger star catalog than the original. This extra info is pretty much wasted on the N8x0 (takes too long to plot them all), but is OK for the desktop (which Mephemeris also runs on). Hopefully some day an 'official' Debianized open source star catalog will be created that all programs could 'share'. Once that happens, I would be happy to switch to that

IMPORTANT: You must also upgrade the 'PyEphem' python library to 3.7.3.2 or newer (also on my software page), since the author made some changes to the API that I also took advantage of. The newer version also fixes a 'runaway calculation' error that the older one was vulnerable to.

As always, for any of you that try/use Mephemeris, I would be interested to get feedback on it. My Python/Maemo skills are reaching their limits, however

UPDATE: List of changes in version 0.40:

2008/08/14 = version 0.40
- add legend toggle
- remove magnitude limiter for maemo
- fix and improve grid options
- add grid option to polar plot
- add zoom option to polar plot
- add legend to polar plot
- allow zoom out past 90 degree field of view

Hello! This is indeed a very nice astronomy program. Thanks so much for all of your hard work. I am still going through all of the options but the info looks good and the graphics are very good. I am running on an N800 with latest Diablo OS and I did have to install python2.5-gpsbt in Red Pill Mode.

It would be nice if this dependency could be rolled into the package (I am relatively new to N800 and various Linux and I do not like this red pill mode that is sometimes required to get something to install).

Thanks again for this app. I hope you continue to update this program.

Kapresley:

Thanks for your positive comments. When it comes to things like 'red pill' mode, I am very naive myself. I did not have to use that mode myself when I reflashed into Diablo, but I wonder if I accomplished the same thing at the command line when I used commands like this:

apt-get -f install
apt-get install python

I also did not feel comfortable using the '-f' mode, but this was the only way that I could get what I wanted as well. I don't know what you mean by 'rolling the dependency into the package', so if you can help me with that I may be able to try it next time.

Take note that a newer version of Mephemeris is coming soon

Hello again, darethehair! I believe there is some way (senior members respond?) to link a dependent package (like the python2.5-gpsbt) into or with your Mephemeris package so that all the necessary stuff gets installed together (maybe putting it into a maemo repository or some such).

I installed Mephemeris and the dependent python package by downloading both and the using the N800 Diablo Application Manager (using red pill mode for only the python dependency, it would not install otherwise).

Anyway, very good stuff and I will look forward to your next version! Keep up the good work!