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Nightfall - Simulate eclipsing binary stars

Nightfall simulates eclipsing binary stars and produces animated views, synthetic lightcurves, radial velocity curves, and eventually determine the best-fit model for a given set of observational data of an eclipsing binary star system. It takes into account the non-spherical shape of close binary stars, mutual reflection, and some other effects. It comes with documentation, on-line help, and observational data of real binary stars. The program supports but does not require the Gnome desktop.

The configurations that Nightfall can handle include overcontact (common envelope) systems, eccentric (non-circular) orbits, surface spots and asynchroneous rotation (stars rotating slower or faster than the orbital period), and the possible existence of a third star in the system ('third light').

Obtaining

Web pagehttp://www.lsw.uni-heidelberg.de/~rwichman/Nightfall.html
Source tarballhttp://www.lsw.uni-heidelberg.de/~rwichman/nightfall-1.38.tar.gz
Version 1.38 (stable) released on 2004-04-15
Licensed under The GNU General Public License, Version 2 or later.
This is not a GNU package.

Support contacts

Announce List<nightfall-l@seul.org> <majordomo@seul.org> body: subscribe nightfall-l
Help List<nightfall-l@seul.org> <majordomo@seul.org> body: subscribe nightfall-l
Developer List<nightfall-l@seul.org> <majordomo@seul.org> body: subscribe nightfall-l
Bug List<support@la-samhna.de>http://www.la-samhna.de/contact.html
Bug Databasehttp://www.la-samhna.de/contact.html

Project contacts

Maintainers
Developers
Contributors
  • See the AUTHORS file in the distribution for a complete list

Related information

InterfacesX Window System
Source languagesC
Use requirementsGTK+ 1.0.4 or later
Weak prerequisitesOpenGL *or* MesaGL, gtkglarea (both for OpenGL support), Gnome, gnuplot
Related programsHitchhiker 2000, Celestia, Space Chart

Entry information

License verified byJanet Casey <jcasey@gnu.org> on 2002-08-27
Entry compiled byJanet Casey <jcasey@gnu.org>

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