If you can read this, it may be either (1) that your browser hasn’t found a way to run the applet or (2) it has blocked it. Possibly, you don’t have a JVM. Usually, this means you just must install the Java plug-in; click here to install it, or here for more information on Java.

On IE, it may also just be that you have to ’unblock the content’ by clicking on the yellow shield (if one has appeared) at the top of the page.

The system will load its resources (including around 500 Kb of astronomical catalogues) at page loading. Once the resources are loaded, a launch button will appear. Click this button to launch the main display.

Comments, bug reports to ajmilne@well.com

The author blogs at The Accidental Weblog.

As of this writing, Gienah is still being developed. While the positions of fixed and ephemeris objects are now good enough for naked-eye observing, there may still be some minor inaccuracies. The xinfo server (providing additional information on selected objects) does not have data for all catalogues.

Gienah

(Arabic for ‘the wing’.)

Named for epsilon Cygni, at the zenith when the design was finalized, Gienah is an astronomy mapping applet designed principally to assist casual naked-eye observations—its strength is the rapid generation of topocentric (observer-centered, geocentric) plots based on an observer’s position and time. Gienah accepts time given in the units of civil time (Gregorian calendar dates) familar to amateur observers.

I modelled Gienah on AJ’s Cosmic Thing—an earlier applet I built around a decade ago to provide a similar service. Gienah’s code, is, however, entirely original—and is considerably more streamlined, and considerably more accurate than was that of the Thing. Gienah also supports larger catalogs, and handles timezone/DST calculations and transitions far more smoothly than did its predecessor.

Help is available via the help buttons in the various windows, and help screens appear in your browser—you may have to allow popups from this site to view help from the applet. You can also browse the help system directly.

The image of UGC 10214 in Gienah’s logo (left) is from the Hubble project, and is credited to NASA, H. Ford (JHU), G. Illingworth (USCS/LO), M.Clampin (STScI), G. Hartig (STScI), the ACS Science Team (H. Ford, G. Illingworth, M. Clampin, G. Hartig, T. Allen, K. Anderson, F. Bartko, N. Benitez, J. Blakeslee, R. Bouwens, T. Broadhurst, R. Brown, C. Burrows, D. Campbell, E. Cheng, N. Cross, P. Feldman, M. Franx, D. Golimowski, C. Gronwall, R. Kimble, J. Krist, M. Lesser, D. Magee, A. Martel, W. J. McCann, G. Meurer, G. Miley, M. Postman, P. Rosati, M. Sirianni, W. Sparks, P. Sullivan, H. Tran, Z. Tsvetanov, R. White, and R. Woodruff) and the ESA, and is in the public domain. Its use does not imply endorsement by any of these parties.

Stellar data are from The Bright Star Catalogue, 5th Revised Edition. (Preliminary Version) Hoffleit, Dorrit, and Warren Jr., Wayne H., Astronomical Data Center, NSSDC/ADC (1991). A standard machine-readable version of the catalogue may be retrieved via FTP from ftp://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/pub/cats/V/50.

Exoplanet data are from Jean Schneider (CNRS-LUTH, Paris Observatory), Extrasolar planets encyclopaedia, at http://exoplanet.eu/catalog.php.

Nonstellar deepsky data are from the Revised New General Catalogue of Nonstellar Astronomical Objects, Sulentic J.W., Tifft W.G., Univ. of Arizona Press (1973). A standard machine-readable version of this catalogue may be retrieved via FTP from http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/ftp-index?VII/1B.

Comments to ajmilne@well.com.