C2A for DOS - version 4.1.4 - September 2002

C2A is available in a DOS version which is compatible with all the Windows Operating Systems. The advantage is that it can be used on hardware platforms that maybe not be powerful enough to run recent versions of Windows. This tool is therefore perfect to run a simple Planetarium program on an old machine close to the telescope.

By default, C2A for DOS is able to read three star databases (around 2100, 9000 and 260.000 objects) as well as three deep sky objects databases (around 110, 5000 and 8000 objects). All these catalogues are provided with the software.

C2A for DOS is able to read the BT-Atlas catalogue (6600 objects) with its 4649 associated images. It is also possible to access the Guide Star catalogue (10 millions objects) as well as the USNO catalogs in different versions (USNO-SA1.0, USNO-A2.0). All these large catalogs are not provided with the C2A for DOS distribution.

To install C2A for DOS, download first the file C2AD_414.zip, uncompress it in a temporary directory et run the executable INSTDOS.EXE. Then, simply follow the steps as displayed on screen. At the end of the installation process, you can delete the files in the temporary directory.

All the documentation about C2A for DOS is available in a file called C2A.PDF provided in the ZIP archive. Take care that this documentation is in French only! Sorry about that, but it would be a tremendous work to translate it...

Compiler for the Hipparcos Catalogue

This tool allows you to compile the Hipparcos catalogue for an efficient usage with C2A for Windows (it improves in particular the display speed for fields with a large number of objects). Note that the compiled version of the Hipparcos catalogue can be directly downloaded here. If you want to compile yourself the Hipparcos catalogue; simply go through the following process:

Download first the file DCHIP.zip, uncompress it and copy the file DCHIP.EXE in a directory on a disk with at least 50 megabytes of free space.
Copy the original Hipparcos catalogue from its CD-ROM into the same directory as the one you have used to store the DCHIP.EXE executable. The original catalogue is normally called hip_main.dat.
Open a DOS Command window (for instance by going into the "Start" menu, then "Run..." and typing"CMD" - this is valid for Windows 2000) then go into the directory where the original catalogue hip_main.dat has been copied (by using the command CD).
Run the command " DCHIP hip_main.dat Hipparcos.dat " where hip_main.dat is the name of the original catalogue and Hipparcos.dat is the name of the compiled catalogue one wants to produce. During the compiling process, 48 temporary files are created in the directory then deleted automatically when the compilation is complete. If the compilation process is stopped, these files must be manually deleted. At the end of the process, 118,218 objects must be reported by the tool.

The output file (Hipparcos.dat) has a size of roughly 11.7 megabytes. Store it in a directory of your hard disk drive (preferably the directory where C2A has been installed) then specify the access path within C2A by going into the tab "Paths" of the Options dialog box (accessible from the menu "Tools/Options..."). This access path could be for instance "C:\Program Files\C2a for Windows\Hipparcos.dat". The compiled file must be exactly 12,298,228 bytes.

C2A is now ready to read the Hipparcos catalogue!

Note that you can also download directly the Hipparcos catalogue in the C2A format on the Catalogues page.

Compiler for the Tycho-2 Catalogue (Version 3.0)

This tool allows you to compile the Tycho-2 catalogue for an efficient usage with C2A for Windows (it improves in particular the display speed for fields with a large number of objects). This version of the compiler (Version 3.0) takes into account supplement files. In order to use this compiler, simply go through the following process:

Download first the file DCTYCHO2.zip, uncompress it and copy the file DCTYCHO2.EXE in a directory on a disk with at least 1.5 gigabytes of free space.
Copy the original Tycho-2 catalog from its CD-ROM into the same directory as the one you have used to store the DCTYCHO2.EXE executable. The original catalogue is normally called CATALOG.DAT.
Open a DOS Command window (for instance by going into the "Start" menu, then "Run..." and typing"CMD" - this is valid for Windows 2000) then go into the directory where the original catalogue CATALOG.DAT has been copied (by using the command CD).
Run the command " DCTYCHO2 CATALOG.DAT SUPPL_1.DAT SUPPL_2.DAT TYCHO-2.DAT " where CATALOG.DAT is the name of the original catalogue, SUPPL_1.DAT and SUPPL_2.DAT are the supplement files and TYCHO-2.DAT is the name of the compiled catalogue one wants to produce. During the compiling process, 48 temporary files are created in the directory then deleted automatically when the compilation is complete. If the compilation process is stopped, these files must be manually deleted. At the end of the process, 2,558,647 objects must be reported by the tool.

The compilation process takes a little more than 2 hours on a Pentium III computer at 1 GHz, so be patient... The output file (TYCHO-2.DAT) has a size of roughly 302 megabytes. Store it in a directory of your hard disk drive or on a CD-ROM, then specify the access path within C2A by going into the tab "Paths" of the Options dialog box (accessible from the menu "Tools/Options..."). This access path could be for instance "C:\Tycho-2\Tycho-2.dat" assuming that a directory "Tycho-2" has been created directly on the C: drive root. The compiled file must be exactly 317,275,784 bytes.

C2A is now ready to read the Tycho-2 catalogue!

Note that you can also download directly the Tycho-2 catalogue in the C2A format on the Catalogues page.

The Guide Star 1.1 catalogue is published by the STScI under the form of 2 CD-ROMs, one for the Northern Hemisphere and one for the Southern Hemisphere. C2A is able to read directly these 2 CD-ROMs. However, in order to make the access to this catalogue easier, it is possible to compact it in order to get a set of files that takes around 160 megabytes on disk (that can be easily stored on a hard disk drive). In order to compile the Guide Star 1.1 catalogue, simply go through the following process:

Download first the file SHRGSC.zip, uncompress it and copy the file SHRGEC.EXE in a directory on a disk having at least 1 gigabytes of free space.
Insert the first CD-ROM of the Guide Star catalogue in your CD-ROM drive.
Open a DOS Command window (for instance by going into the "Start" menu, then "Run..." and typing"CMD" - this is valid for Windows 2000) then go into the directory where you have copied the file SHRGSC.EXE (where all the file hierarchy of the compiled catalogue will be created by default).
Run the command "SHRGSC <CD-ROM Path> <Compiled Catalogue Path >" where <CD-ROM Path> is the access path to your CD-ROM drive and <Compiled Catalogue Path > is the directory where you want to store the compiled catalogue. This command can be for instance:
"SHRGSC D: C:\GSC".
Repeat the same operation with the second CD-ROM of the Guide Star catalogue.

Once the catalogue is fully compiled, put the hierarchy of files on a hard disk drive or on a CD-ROM and specify the access path within C2A by going into the tab "Paths" of the Options dialog box (accessible from the menu "Tools/Options..."). This access path could be for instance "C:\GSC" assuming that a directory "GSC" has been created directly on the C: drive root.

C2A is now ready to read the Guide Star catalogue under its compressed form!

The UCAC1 catalogue is published by the US Naval Observatory under the form of a CD-ROM that contains a file called u1.tar.gz. In order to be efficiently used by C2A, this catalogue must be compiled first. To compile the UCAC1 catalogue, simply go through the following process:

Download first the file UCAC1.zip, uncompress it and copy the file UCAC1.EXE in a directory on a disk with at least 6 gigabytes of free space.
Insert the UCAC1 CD-ROM in your CD-ROM drive.
Copy the compressed file u1.tar.gz in a directory of your hard disk drive.
Uncompress the file u1.tar using for instance the Winzip utility.
Extract all the files contained in the TAR file u1.tar. The Winzip utility is also able to perform this extraction. At this step, you should have 169 files from z001 to z169 that take 1.73 gigabytes on your disk (do not forget to delete these files after the compilation process!). Note that the extraction process of the TAR file can take some time and that you need plenty of free space on the disk used by Winzip to store temporary file.
Open a DOS Command window (for instance by going into the "Start" menu, then "Run..." and typing"CMD" - this is valid for Windows 2000) then go into the directory where you have copied the file UCAC1.EXE (where the compiled catalogue will be created).
Run the command "UCAC1 <Access Path to UCAC1 files> <Compiled Catalogue Name>" where <Access Path to UCAC1 files> is the access path to the directory where are located the files z001 to z169 and <Compiled Catalogue Name> is the name of the file that will contain the compiled catalogue. This command can be for instance:
"UCAC1 D:\TMP D:\UCAC1.DAT".
During the compilation process, 48 temporary files are created then automatically deleted after the compilation is complete. If the compilation process is stopped, all these files must be manually deleted. 27,425,433 objects must be reported by the tool.

The compilation process takes 2 hours and 30 minutes on a Pentium III computer at 1 GHz, so be patient... The output file (for instance UCAC1.DAT) has a size of roughly 889 megabytes. Store it in a directory of your hard disk drive then specify the access path within C2A by going into the tab "Paths" of the Options dialog box (accessible from the menu "Tools/Options..."). This access path could be for instance "D:\UCAC1\UCAC1.DAT" assuming that a directory "UCAC1" has been created directly on the C: drive root. The compiled file must be exactly 932,468,278 bytes

C2A is now ready to read the UCAC1 catalogue!

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The UCAC2 catalogue is published by the US Naval Observatory under the form of 3 CD-ROMs that contain 288 files named from Z001 to Z288 as well as 36 files for the Bright Star Supplement names s01 to s36. In order to be efficiently used by C2A, this catalogue must be compiled first. To compile the UCAC2 catalogue, simply go through the following process:

Download first the file UCAC2.zip, uncompress it and copy the file UCAC2.EXE in a directory on a disk with at least 10 gigabytes of free space.
Copy the files Z001 to Z288 and s01 to s36 in a directory of your hard disk drive (if you do not have the Bright Star Supplement files s01 to s36 on the UCAC2 CD-ROMs, you can download them from here).
Open a DOS Command window (for instance by going into the "Start" menu, then "Run..." and typing"CMD" - this is valid for Windows 2000) then go into the directory where you have copied the file UCAC2.EXE (where the compiled catalogue will be created).
Run the command "UCAC2 <Access Path to UCAC2 files>" where <Access Path to UCAC2 files> is the access path to the directory where are located the files z001 to z288 and s01 to s36. This command can be for instance:
"UCAC2 D:\TMP".
During the compilation process, 48 temporary files are created then automatically deleted after the compilation is complete. If the compilation process is stopped, all these files must be manually deleted. 48,330,571 objects must be reported by the tool.

The 24 output files (UCAC2_00.DAT to UCAC2_23.DAT) have a size of roughly 2.17 gigabytes. Store them in a directory of your hard disk drive then specify the access path within C2A by going into the tab "Paths" of the Options dialog box (accessible from the menu "Tools/Options..."). This access path could be for instance "D:\UCAC2" assuming that a directory "UCAC2" has been created directly on the C: drive root.

C2A is now ready to read the UCAC2 catalogue!

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Text user catalogues are useful when catalogues are not too big. However, for large catalogues, loading time within C2A et screen refresh become prohibitives.

C2A for Windows offers the possibility to compile an object catalogue. This means that a binary file can be produced from an ASCII file whose syntax is described by the user. This binary file can then be loaded and displayed much faster within C2A. Furthermore, users have the ability to define their own fields whose value is displayed when objects are identified within the maps.

For a text database to be compiled, user has to provide a certain number of information in a text file called a "model file". This information will allow the database compiler to figure out which data is to be extracted from the ASCII file and used to produce the compiled file.

The database compiler for C2A for Windows iss called “DC” and must be launched from the Windows Command Line.

In order to install the compiler and use it, first download the file DC.zip, uncompress it, and copy the executable file DC.EXE in a directory of your choice. Then open a Windows command line (go into the Start menu, choose "Execute...", then type "cmd" followed by OK). Go then into the directory where the DC compiler has been installed. Here, the compiler can be used using the directions provided in the C2A Help System.

An English version of the user guide for the Catalogue Compiler is available here.

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