Follows is a random list of contributions of one sort or another related to XEphem. We have not necessarily tested these but are happy to serve as a central exchange for these efforts. If you have questions about these please contact the authors directly. Send your contribution ideas to xephem@clearskyinstitute.com.

• xeseds2.1.pl is a Perl script that can be used with the fifo interface. Once running, then when you click on "Telescope GoTo" over many types of objects in Sky View, a command is sent to put up a new browser window (konquerer by default) to fetch a page of information about the object from various web sites. It's quite nice. Thanks go to Tim Walker, twalker@bigpond.net.au.

• Catalogs contributed by Steve Mencinsky, SM310531 at Exchange.Australia.NCR.COM
  • M31globulars.edb is a list of principle globular clusters in galaxy M31.
  • SMC.edb is a list of deep sky objects in the Magellanic Clouds.
  • recons100.edb is the complete census as of January 1, 2000, of objects outside our solar system known within 10 parsecs.

• Get the latest AAVSO standard star list from http://www.aavso.org/observing/aids/aavso.edb. Many thanks to Aaron Price, AAVSO.

• Looking for Motif? Here are prebuilt libraries and include files suitable for compiling XEphem from source on several systems. Right-click and Save the desired file, explode, and set the MOTIFI and MOTIFL macros in Makefile.smple in the XEphem source directory to point to the explode directory.
  • Linux on x86
  • Linux on Alpha
  • FreeBSD on x86
  • Mac OS X

• Looking for a lightweight browser to use for the XEphem help? Try Dillo. Thanks to acrux for the suggestion.

• An XEphem package for Solaris is now on blastwave. First get and install the pkg-get package then run "pkg-get -i xephem". Courtesy Bruce Riddle.

• Brandon Craig Rhodes has built an excellent astronomical Python library called PyEphem based on XEphem's libraries. Even if you don't use Python check it out, it's enough to make you switch.

• XEphem runs pretty well under Windows using Cygwin, including all the data bases from the commercial edition, but the process to get it up and running can be a little daunting. Click here for a set of basic steps you might find helpful to guiding your efforts (thanks to Jean-Pierre RIVET, Jean-Pierre.Rivet at obs-nice dot fr) and here for instructions on adding an icon on your Windows desktop to start XEphem. (thanks to David Brooks). There are also discussions from time to time on the XEphem forum; see, for example, this thread.

• XEphem also runs well under Windows using free products from VMWare. You will need the free VM Player and one of the free Linux Platform Virtual Machines. We hear the SUSE version works especially well with XEphem.

• Here are four .fav files of favorite NGC objects for each season of the year. Contributed by Guillermo Andrade, database contributor par excellent.
  • Summer
  • Autumn
  • Winter
  • Spring

• Here are the orbital elements for the new "10th planet" formatted for XEphem. Data was taken from MPEC 2005-O41 : 2003 UB313:

  2003 UB313,e,44.17700,35.87500,151.31153,67.7091000,0.00176902,0.4416129,197.53790,8/18.0/2005,2000.0,H-1.1,0.15
      

  Or right-click here to download as a file.

• Here are two Constellation Figures files inspired by popular sky atlases used in Germany and England: eurofigs_de.csf and eurofigs_uk.csf Put them in your shared or private XEphem directory and it will automatically become available as a choice in the Sky View -> Options -> Constellation menu. Contributed by Georg Graf, georg.graf at gmx.de.

• Craig Kulesa kindly maintains a collection of RPM files for XEphem at http://loke.as.arizona.edu/~ckulesa/xephem. Thanks for your support, Craig.

• Bob Abraham has contributed an alterate image of Mars. It is made from observations from Earth and so more closely matches what a visual observer sees at the telescope than the Mars Orbiter map included with XEphem. The image is not perfectly registered with the Martian coordinate system of database objects but it is close enough for many purposes. Please see his forum posting for full details and to download the final image. To use the image in XEphem, first save your current Mars map in ShareDir/auxil/marsmap.jpg somewhere then copy in Bob's image. Thanks Bob, this is a great idea, and very timely!