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Home PageHelp System in English!Many thanks to John Beavis who conducted the enormous task to translate the C2A help system. Version 2.0.45 Available
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C2A (Computer Aided Astronomy) is a Planetarium software that allows you to build detailed views of stellar fields. An important objective of this software is to take into account the main catalogues available to professional and amateur astronomers in order to prepare observations on small fields as well as astrometry and photometry works. C2A is also an easy to use general purpose Planetarium software with many functions.
C2A is able to display the following catalogues: SAO, GCVS, WDS and Hipparcos (all four provided with the standard program distribution), Guide Star, Tycho-2 (both can be downloaded from this site in the Downloads page), USNO-SA1.0, USNO-A2.0, USNO-B1.0, UCAC1, UCAC2, UCAC3, NOMAD and PPMXL (which are not provided with the distribution because of their size). A preliminary support of the UCAC4 catalogue is also available in version 2.0.45 of C2A. For photometry purpose, C2A natively integrates the Loneos catalogue (UBVRI photometry of faint field stars, which is part of the standard distribution package). C2A is able to access directly over the Internet the catalogues ArasBeAM (for spectral observation of Be stars - see the site http://arasbeam.free.fr/) and Exoplanet Transit Database (to plan exoplanet transit observations - see the site http://var2.astro.cz/ETD/index.php). Finally, C2A integrates an asterism catalogue.
Regarding deep sky objects, C2A is provided with 3 catalogues: the Revised New General Catalogue and Index Catalogue (credit Wolfgang Steinicke - see the site Revised New General Catalogue and Index Catalogue), the Catalogue of Principal Galaxies (PGC 2003) as well as a catalogue of deep sky objects based on the RNGC and NGC2000 catalogues. C2A is also able to display field images transferred from the ESO DSS and STScI DSS (Digitized Sky Survey) servers over the Internet. Finally, users have the possibility to associate their own images to various types of objects.
The user can also create its own catalogues of objects, either under the form of text files or compiled catalogues. Finally, C2A integrates numerous functions such as planetary position computing, asteroid and comet path display, ephemeris production, telescope control, ... All these functions are described in the Information page of this Web site.
C2A is a freeware. It can be used freely out of all commercial activity. The author cannot be made responsible for any damage caused by the usage of this software.
In order to download C2A, just go to the Distributions section of the Downloads page.
| May 16, 2012 | Version 2.0.45 available. Version 2.0.45 of C2A is now available for download. This version includes several improvements, e.g. better automatric label positioning, enhanced field marker tool, preliminary UCAC4 support, ... |
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| April 25, 2012 | C2A in Softpedia. C2A has been added to the Softpedia database of software programs. The nice thing about this is that C2A is granted with the "100% CLEAN" Softpedia award guaranteeing that C2A is completely clean of adware/spyware components. The Softpedia C2A page is here. The certificate is available here. |
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 C2A displays the main nebulae with their approximate shapes. These shapes are drawn when the zoom level fits their display. |
 C2A includes an image processing module to perform basic actions on images of all types. It also allows the user to acquire images through the Maxim DL software. |
 C2A integrates a powerful tool to display field markers for all kinds of optical coinfigurations. |
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 This screen shot shows the tracks of an observation schedule with respect to the horizon. This allows for instance the user to check that observations do not cross the meridian. |
 The observation planner tool integrated within C2A is a powerful means to identify target objets when preparing an observation session. |
 Magnitude 10 star in Lizard for which an exoplanet transit can be observed. |
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 View of the Horizon in the South of France, May 2010. An horizon line is displayed and a magnitude filter has been set on stars. |
 Stars from the ArasBeAM Catalogue. The observation priority is represented through a color code (red for the most urgents). |
 Messier 105 in Leo. An ESO DSS image has been positioned in the background. Once can see the good matching with the database objects in the foreground. |
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Last Update : May 16, 2012 |
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