Re: ANNOUNCE: Mephemeris - Astronomy Program
 

Hello again skatebiker:

Well, it looks like your difficulties are with 'pyculator' requiring 'python-hildondesktop', and not really 'mephemeris', right? So you may want to start another thread for that.

My advise is to try to install 'python-hildondesktop' first. Personally, when I was first trying out Python desktop applets, I found out where about that stuff in this thread:

http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...3&postcount=17

...but I now think that you can 'apt-get' install the two required packages instead.

P.S. You never indicated whether you had tried the other 'python2.5-gpsbt' ideas that I had suggested earlier?

Re: ANNOUNCE: Mephemeris - Astronomy Program
 

I tried it but with no result. Before that I uninstalled pyculator (which didn't work good).
Possible mephemeris does not have the proper dependencies list ??
I didn't have such problems while installing other applications.
Did others install mEphemeris successfully ?

Re: ANNOUNCE: Mephemeris - Astronomy Program
 

skatebiker:

Yech! From the messages, it looks like you have a *partially installed* python-hildondesktop package. No, this problem has nothing to do with Mephemeris (I did not write 'python-hildondesktop'!). It is probably easy to fix, but I am a Fedora (RPM) guy, and know very little about Debian (apt-get) stuff like this -- just enough for me to install stuff on my N800.

My advise, as in the past, is for you to (perhaps) start a new thread to ask for help in resolving your package/repository issues.

One of my other questions to you was this: did you get rid of your duplicate/redundant respositories?

skatebiker:
your problem was broken pyculator package, not python-hildondesktop. Since you have uninstalled broken package you can now install python2.5-gpsbt package.

Root cause is for this is that you have mixed outdated repositories with current ones. python-hildondesktop is nowadays called python2.5-hildondesktop. I would recommend you to use only diablo repositories, but not extras-devel one

Re: ANNOUNCE: Mephemeris - Astronomy Program
 

I tried but it issued the same problem, cannot install gpsbt.

What do you mean with 'only diablo repositries' ? How can I do this ?
Should I change something in the application manager ?

Re: ANNOUNCE: Mephemeris - Astronomy Program
 

skatebiker:

I would still say that these questions/answers regarding proper repository setup should be in a *different* thread, since people are reading this one for info about Mephemeris...

Anyways, back in msg #73, you showed a screen shot of some of your repositories in Application Manager. Then, in msg #75 you did what I suggested and showed the complete list in text format. I suggested that you do the following in msg #76 (and now mikkov is saying the same thing):

1) Disable one of your 'maemo extras' repositories (you have both a 'chinook' and 'diablo' one.

2) Disable your 'maemo extras devel' repository.

3) Do something to remove the 'duplicate' repository entries that you have for 'maemo extras' (you listed *2* chinook and *2* diablo -- you only want *1* of them, not *4*). Look at your own messages to confirm what we are saying.

Please start a new thread if you have more issues/concerns about this! :)

Re: ANNOUNCE: Mephemeris - Astronomy Program
 

Here continuation in
http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...d.php?p=246338

Re: ANNOUNCE: Mephemeris - Astronomy Program
 

Finally I managed to install mephemeris and I tested the application. It is a nice application, but clearly unfinished, looking like a beta application.

What I like:

- clear self-explanatory buttons what to do or refresh
- sky chart with different display options

What I dislike:

- no configuration / settings screen. The user has to edit /usr/lib/mephemeris/mephemeris.ini by hand.
- when opening 'sky' it opens a sky map with lots of option buttons but when the user clicks a button nothing happens. There is nothing such as a 'refresh' or 'apply' button.
- when the location is updated (in this form the text fields are too small to fit the letters/digits whic render unreadable text)
and the application is restarted it resets to the value in the ini file
- it includes 'Pluto' in the planets. Why include such a faint dwarf planet ?

Conclusion:

Nice application but it has to be finished yet.

Re: ANNOUNCE: Mephemeris - Astronomy Program
 

Some of us grew up with Pluto being a planet, and we still like it that way. In any case it deserves its place, if for no other reason than that it's actually possible for a backyard amateur astronomer to spot Pluto. Finally, the "official" status of Pluto is _still_ being discussed, and there's no reason for us ordinary folks to rrip it out of the familiar set-of-planets setting.

:)

Re: ANNOUNCE: Mephemeris - Astronomy Program
 

Sorry for the delayed response, skatebiker, to your review of Mephemeris. I thank you for doing so, even though I am not sure I agree with some of your evaluation :)

1) True, any 'load up' settings need to be controlled by editting the 'ini' file. If you can suggest some of them that would greatly benefit from 'remembering' from one session to another, please suggest it. I figured that most/all were fairly 'static' and did not need this feature i.e. set it up once, and leave it alone after that.

2) In this thread, and also in the README, it mentions how the sky plot screen can be 'refreshed' without having an explicit 'button' marked to do so. One of the ways is simply to 'touch' the plot itself. Did you see that in the README file?

3) I agree that the 'text' in the 'location' setter looks bad -- but (believe me) I tried a zillion combinations in PyGTK and this was the best that I could do. I suspect a bug in the libraries.

4) TA-t3 speaks for me re: Pluto, and I made a similar comment about this in your same comment for the 'MOrrery' program :)

As far as being 'beta' software, well, I had always thought that this meant that the software was still 'buggy' and not ready for practical use. Here is what Wikipedia says:

"unstable and not yet ready for release"

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_version#Beta]

I suppose this is rather subjective, but I tried to make sure that I did not declare Mephemeris to be version '1.0' until I had taken all the known 'bugs' out, and introduced sufficient 'functionality' that it would be 'usable'. So, IMHO, Mephemeris is no longer 'beta' software :)

Re: ANNOUNCE: Mephemeris - Astronomy Program
 

FYI: Back in post #79 of this thread, I had mentioned that version 1.00 of Mephemeris had been released, but it looks like I never put it up on my webpage for download! Eeek!

Anyways, when I was posting my new app today (MGedcom) I noticed this, and made efforts to update Mephemeris to the latest version -- which I had done way back on Nov 24th!

http://darethehair.googlepages.com/software.html

It looks like I made a few minor improvements to the 'solar system' plot options :)

Re: ANNOUNCE: Mephemeris - Astronomy Program
 

For some reason, I had version 1.00 of Mephemeris already installed. I also have version 0.11 of MOrrery, even though your site only mentions 0.09.

I don't know where I got it, but thanks.

Re: ANNOUNCE: Mephemeris - Astronomy Program
 

belanger:

This is bizarre, but thanks for letting me also know about MOrrery. I suspect that somehow my 'web page' got out-of-sync with what was actually available on my web site, so I have now tried to put it back to what it 'originally' was :)

Re: ANNOUNCE: Mephemeris - Astronomy Program
 

I wish this existed for Maemo 5:

User points to the sky with his device and sees in the screen an equivalent graphic representation identifying the planets, main stars and constellations inview, based on the current time, location and compass.

Like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PRfVKzuUJ4 but pointing to the sky.

Re: ANNOUNCE: Mephemeris - Astronomy Program
 

I actually tried to make something like this but I'm afraid it wasn't very useful, at least with the N810. It (sort of) worked when zoomed out but the GPS provided compass wasn't good enough for any of the closer views (like on the video). My guess this could be improved upon using accelerometers/gyroscopes if the next maemo device has them, but even there some sort of calibration would likely be required (the sky is mighty big if your window is a 4" screen at an arm's length).

Also, for this purpose it might be worth checking out if Stellarium could be made to work with OpenGL ES, it's very representative, although definitely not a lightweight app.

Re: ANNOUNCE: Mephemeris - Astronomy Program
 

GPS will not know your heading unless you're moving, which is pretty inconvenient if you want to watch the sky at the same time...
A real, electronic compass could be a useful thing in a NIT, for some people. Unfortunately, even the new, upcoming omap chipsets with their kitchen-sink list of built-in features don't include an electronic compass afaics.

Re: ANNOUNCE: Mephemeris - Astronomy Program
 

I totally agree with you guys: a device that knows it own orientation (GPS/compass,etc), and also one that knows about its own movement (accelerometers). Even if all of this is not 'built-in', why can't some after-market USB plugin device be created?

Re: ANNOUNCE: Mephemeris - Astronomy Program
 

There are tricks to get heading even from a stationary GPS, but admittedly that requires a very low level approach and is (still) pretty unreliable/unwieldy, especially for NIT style devices.

The electronic compass has few applications and many specifics to accomodate, (and as GPS can double as a compass most of the time) it isn't as popular with embedded chipset makers.

Re: ANNOUNCE: Mephemeris - Astronomy Program
 

Ok, compromises can be made. For instance, the display might show a 21mm optic equivalent or even a simple set of views North South East West, defaulting to the view where the Moon is found (if visible). Also the Moon itself could be shown in its current phase.

These apps are impressive in the Linux desktop, but they somehow fail in the most popular mobile use cases: What is the name of that star? What is the Polar star? Where is the constellation of certain Zodiac symbol?

The compass thing is cool but not essential

Re: ANNOUNCE: Mephemeris - Astronomy Program
 

Heh, nearly spot on what my would-be app is for. Does this description fit ?

A Qt based lightweight astronomical observation aide, not unlike KStars, but without KDE dependencies and more oriented towards education through practical uses. The primary focus of the application is not just to show a dataset of stars and other celestial objects, but to make it possible to plan, track and help observations in the field, for beginners and advanced backyard astronomers alike. The primary target hardware platform is the Nokia N810 (being well suited for observatory style operations - long battery operated life, portable, built in GPS), but notebooks and other devices supporting Qt libraries could make use of Qt Observatory as well.

It is supposed to have most of the functionality you mention one day, with some educational additions (try to recognize location/constellations based on drawing the more prominent stars - something like liqbase).

The compass is good to match the movement of the user (=accelerators) to actual points in the sky. Without it, you just have one coordinate (altitude), and no reference point for the azimuth.

I don't know if calibration (=point your NIT) by celestial objects would be considered too complex, as it could provide a fixed point. This could be (as you suggested) the moon, a planet, or simply the brightest star available. Based on that, all sorts of niftiness would be possible.

Re: ANNOUNCE: Mephemeris - Astronomy Program
 

OK, guys, sorry that Mephemeris is not exactly what some people are looking for re: an astronomy app for Maemo, but in the meantime I decided to add a few more features to it:

2009/03/20 = version 1.12
- add new 'ini' file options for sources of asteroid, comet, and NEO data
- add options to plot asteroids, comets, and NEOs on both sky and solar system plots
- add menu and initial options, such as 'quit' and 'help'
- add options to edit/save 'ini' file settings
- add options to edit/save 'messier' image URL file settings
- add options to edit/save 'misc' image URL file settings
- add search options for all appropriate object types
- add better proportional planet sizes during extreme zooming
- add realistic shading, tilt, gridding, and info to the 'Moon Phase' window
- fix bug in object size not affecting some object types
- fix bug (!) of program ending when date/time direct setting is done

Some of these features were indirectly requested in the past. The new menu/table features were skills I picked up while writing 'MGedcom'. As before, a lot of these were not easy, and a lot of hair-pulling occurred in the process :)

I have to remind everyone that this app is cross-functional on the desktop as well on the N8xx -- but it sure runs a lot faster and looks a lot nicer on the 'big screen' -- especially in 'fullscreen' window mode, since there is a lot more 'elbow room'.

The newest version is about 25% larger than the old one.

The website for it, as always, is here:

http://darethehair.googlepages.com/software.html

I made new 'screen shots', which can now be clicked for a real-size appearance.

Let me know if you try the new version, and whether it works out OK for you!

Re: ANNOUNCE: Mephemeris - Astronomy Program
 

Hi Darethehair,

I tried to install MEphem today, and I find that the Python-GPSbt library which is required, is no longer available. There is a news item on the Maemo-Python web page that says they are dropping it because of freemantle?

Any help here?

I'm a N810 w/ Diablo

Thanks

Re: ANNOUNCE: Mephemeris - Astronomy Program
 

Ouch! I have not (yet) verified your dilemma re: GPSBt availability, but it sounds nasty -- and unnecessary, since why would they stop *existing* users of Diablo from wanting to use it?

I just did a search and found this -- why not try to install it from here?

http://repository.maemo.org/extras/p.../python-gpsbt/

This contains:

python2.5-gpsbt_0.1-18osso2_armel.deb

When I query my own version, I get:

python2.5-gpsbt 0.1-18osso2

What happens when you try to install it the 'normal' way?

Re: ANNOUNCE: Mephemeris - Astronomy Program
 

it's dropped from Fremantle, nothing has changed for Diablo. Mephemeris doesn't appear to be be in Extras, that's probably "root cause" for installation difficulties (you have to manually install depencies)

Re: ANNOUNCE: Mephemeris - Astronomy Program
 

I installed mephemeris-1.22-1 some days ago and worked. But now it doesn't work anymore, since it crashes. This is what I get:

python2.5-xml wasn't necessary before, and I don't want to install it since it's big.

Thanks for your help,
L.

Re: ANNOUNCE: Mephemeris - Astronomy Program
 

Hello! Thanks for trying out MEphemeris! Unfortunately, I am not the best one to diagnose your problems or suggest a solution. However, here are my (perhaps incorrect) thoughts:

1) MEphemeris requires Python XML functionality, so I don't think you have any choice except to install "python2.5-xml". I am not aware of a smaller/alternative library

2) I am puzzled that it 'used' to work for you, and now it does not. The suggests that you *did* (?) at one point have the necessary XML library, and it was removed from your system -- the behavior of MEphemeris should not change from one day to another, I think :)

P.S. I continue to work on a newer version of MEphemeris, but I am not 'touching' the XML part at all.

Re: ANNOUNCE: Mephemeris - Astronomy Program
 

Yes, it seems there is another python package that provides XML, and that one was removed. Perhaps you should add python2.5-xml as a requirement...?

Thanks a lot for your nice work!
Cheers,
L.

PS: BTW, if you can add telescope control (Meade/Celestron) to mephemeris (for example using INDI) that would be a dream come true!! :)

Re: ANNOUNCE: Mephemeris - Astronomy Program
 

If I remember to do so the next time I create a package, I will add 'python2.5-xml' as a dependency.

As for the INDI thing, I totally agree at how cool that would be! Unfortunately, I have no computer-controllable scope myself to test anything I would write -- but if a couple of people here would purchase one for me, I would certainly give it a try! :)

Re: ANNOUNCE: Mephemeris - Astronomy Program
 

That would be cool, wouldn't it?? :)

Two more things:

1) I would expect to click in certain region in the sky, and that region to be centered. However, it goes somewhere in another universe...

2) IMHO, I would concentrate on speed of the skyview. It is quite slow now, at least in my N800.

Thanks for your work!
Cheers,
L.

Re: ANNOUNCE: Mephemeris - Astronomy Program
 

1) In the next version, I believe that I have improved (but sadly not perfected) the ability of a sky region click to re-center properly.

2) Sadly, no obvious ways present themselves to speed up the sky display much beyond what it is now -- I think this is mostly due to the app being written in Python, rather that C -- rather than my own coding skills (though that always remains a possibility). Right now, the only way to 'speed it up' is to reduce as much of the 'options' as possible i.e. reduce visual magnitude, turn off objects that you do not need to display, turn of grids, etc..

Re: ANNOUNCE: Mephemeris - Astronomy Program
 

Indeed, in the end, every complex program like this ends up in C...

Thanks!
L.

Re: ANNOUNCE: Mephemeris - Astronomy Program
 

I'm really looking forward to this next version! -P.

Re: ANNOUNCE: Mephemeris - Astronomy Program
 

Well, at this point I have been tweaking a few last-minute fixes/improvements to MEphemeris, but mostly I am awaiting help from the author of PyEphem on some potential bugs that I have found in the new 'satellite pass' prediction features that were recently added. These features are 'just in time' for me to add them to MEphemeris :)

Re: ANNOUNCE: Mephemeris - Astronomy Program
 

Mephemeris is another cool app. Thank you for all your work.

I'm having mostly bad luck getting information from my shiny new bluetooth GPS. FWIW Maemo-mapper and MChronos both talk to it.

Pushing "Reset Location" has worked exactly once, out of dozens of attempts. It briefly turned green, I got the GPS Location icon in the status bar, and the lat and long numbers changed from the default values.

Usually what happens is a screen message "GPS location/time not used -- using internal settings instead". In the terminal window I get:

"GPS SEARCHING...PLEASE WAIT
On Maemo so trying bluetooth GPS...
Problem while connecting!
not found gps position= <default values>"

I'm so trying to understand why this is happening, when other applications work and play well with the bluetooth GPS.

The relevant section of the .ini file is:

gps mode= gpsbt
gps timeout= 15
gpsd host= 127.0.0.1
gpsd port= 2947

I was sure the default IP wouldn't work, so I changed it. I suspect the localhost IP would be a better default. (Perhaps you would also consider moving this file to the user directory with the proper ownership, as I suggested for MChronos.)

This is a nifty program; it would be niftier if it would update from the GPS.

Re: ANNOUNCE: Mephemeris - Astronomy Program
 

Hello again! Glad you like it -- I have a newer version pending for a few months now, but some (what I think are) bugs in the PyEphem libraries are tripping me up, so I am awaiting assistance from the author before releasing it.

Hmmm...no one else has reported the same problem. As well, it works OK for me, and the same 'GPS' code is used in both MEphemeris and MChronos (from what I recall).

Actually, the 'host/port' settings are *just* for the 'gpsd' mode of the app (and this mode, BTW, is not one that I support or have tested on the N8xx). I have that mode to support running MEphemeris on a typical desktop (where the screen real estate is nice and large). For the standard 'gpsbt' mode, those are irrelevant.

All I can suggest is to insure that you have a good GPS lock *outside* of MEphemeris first, and then try the GPS thing :)

Re: ANNOUNCE: Mephemeris - Astronomy Program
 

I did, but thanks for the suggestion.

Re: ANNOUNCE: Mephemeris - Astronomy Program
 

Its been a long time since I have posted in this Forum. I never did (and perhaps never will) jump from the N800 platform to the N900. With the new emphasis on 'Qt' rather than 'Gtk', I don't think my astronomy apps have a bright future on Nokia's tablets anymore :)

That being said, I continue to tweek and enhance some of my apps -- including Mephemeris.

- Does anyone here still use it?
- Anyone interested in any newer versions?
- Do my apps even work on the N900?

Re: ANNOUNCE: Mephemeris - Astronomy Program
 

Hi

this app doesn't seem to appear in the Repos for the n900, so I have been unable to test, which is a shame, as it would be useful for me.

Re: ANNOUNCE: Mephemeris - Astronomy Program
 

Hello! I am curious to know what would happen if you simply clicked/downloaded the app directly from the old 'Diablo' repository?

http://repository.maemo.org/extras-d.../m/mephemeris/

(of course, you would also need the 'PyEphem' library as well)

I used to host my 'software' page on Google, but it looks like they have taken that feature away -- I will have to investigate this...EDIT: it was a bit tedious with Google's web page editor, but I have attempted to re-create my original 'software' page here:

https://sites.google.com/site/darethehair/home/software

Note that this contains slightly old versions of my stuff. No web site or repository yet contains my most recent version of Mephemeris (version 1.41 or so).