Exploring the Sun uses images from NASA, NOAA, and NSO to explore our Sun with pictures.The program uses simple instructions (buttons and switches) in order to guide students through Basic Sun information, two science experiments and a fun multiple choice test.

The information presented is very basic, but made much more interesting by actual photo images of the Sun. It has been reviewed and recommended by Sky & Telescope and Astronomy Now as a tutorial for young astronomers.

Calculates and displays the Date, time and Lunar Latitude per month for a given year (includes offsets from Prime Meridian and either UT or local time).

The routines are written in BASIC, are not object oriented and make some assumptions about both software and hardware platforms.

Lunar orbital accuracy is a non-trivial task. The equations for New Moon Dates are derived from the equations used in the book: "Astronomy with Your Personal Computer" by Peter Duffett-Smith.The accuracy claimed in the book is accurate to within two minutes (page 172 of the second edition).The information displayed is the date of the New Moon and the New Moons latitude.You will have to decide if this is enough accuracy for your needs.

Whats New in This Release:

· Added Daylight Savings Time and an indicator to show when it has affected the date shown.

3D Moon Jellies has realistic animations of varied sized jellyfish in a purple-hues aquarium with a few small plankton floating past.

3D Moon Jellies has a nice and serene background music is interspersed with soft piano chords.

Demo contains full set of features. Have fun customizing this screen saver to your preferences including background tint, separate animation tint, brightness, sound mute and volume control. Registered version doesnt have DEMO splash screen or the registration reminder overlay text.

Contains 3D animated images and MP3 sound files. Sound can be muted. Provides password protection for OS X systems. Supports dual monitors.

Available at a substantial per screen saver discount when purchased in a set. No adware, spyware, surveys, data collection, toolbars, opt-out or opt-in offers or any other add-ons. Only quality screen savers. Demo expires in 3 days.

Limitations:

· 3 days trial

Sun Spotter is a very intereting tool for grabbing the latest white-light image of the Sun, taken from the SOHO web site.

The image corresponds to the sort of view you would see using a telescope equipped with a standard solar filter.

Some brief notes are included to explain what it is youre looking at.
Intended for amateur astronomers and teachers/students interested in the Sun.

The Moon Phase widget displays the current lunar phase as visible from the Earth. North is at the top.

Whats New in This Release:

· switched to a julian date method and made adjustments for accuracy.

Sunlit Moon displays the true phase of the Moon. The orthographic image is rendered from an equirectangular atlas of the Moon based on data gathered by the NASA Lunar Orbiter missions. The atlas is courtesy of the USGS Astrogeology Research Program. Each rendered image accounts for optical and physical libration. Meaning, it displays only the lunar features that are currently visible from Earth due to the effects of libration.

The green compass represents geographic direction and the gray represents selenographic direction. These are drawn to illustrate the offset of the lunar poles to that of the Earth s poles due to libration. For examples of lunar libration, visit the Lunar Libration page. Clicking on the image of the Moon in the widget displays a selenographic grid to further illustrate the effects of libration. Also, the age and illuminated fraction is displayed.

To The Moon is an icon set of 7 icons that represent NASAs Mercury, Gemini and Apollo capsules, as well as the moon, re-entry, a space helmet and a Lunar Module (LEM). A free desktop picture is also included.

Whether at home or at work, keep Starry Night astronomy software at your fingertips. Faster than a shooting star, the Moon Exploration Widget will bring the sky for any location to your Macintosh OS X Dashboard in an instant.

College and University Icons is a nice set with 315 icons, including every college and university in the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, Big East, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, PAC 10, SEC, Sun Belt, WAC, and 1-A Independents, Plus now Every major bowl game in the country.

For every school and bowl game, there is one icon for the school/event itself, as well as a folder icon.

CosmoSaver is a spectacular screensaver for MacOS X that lets you immerse yourself in our beautiful solar system.

Here are some key features of "CosmoSaver":

· See major planets from the vantage point of their fascinating moons
· Fly through the solar system visiting the sun, each of the planets and 29 different moons
· The earth shows the correct orientation to the sun as well as an up to date cloud cover that updates every 3 hours Orbit each of the planets, the sun and all 29 major moons to see the solar system from all angles
· The sun, planets and moons have very detailed textures and accurate orbital positions accurate to within an arcsecond.


Whats New in This Release:

· Fixed display speed problem for older graphics cards due to new stars.

HourWorld shows the light and dark areas of the earth with the positions of the sun and moon.

Twilight is displayed with both beauty and geometric precision as it blends from daylight into full darkness around the world. The primary screen displays up to 14 clocks, showing the current time and day/night status in cities of your choice.

Functions include worldwide clocks, phone call coordinator, sunrise and sunset, sun and moon calendars, sundial, and GPS.

Limitations:

· As downloaded, without a registration key, HourWorldTM will operate as "HourWorldTM Lite", limited to the smallest display size, with some features limited. Larger sizes are included in the software, but operate in a demonstration mode until the copy is registered.


Whats New in This Release:

· Daylight Saving start/stop rules extended and adjusted for known changes through Dec 2008.
· DST maps preloaded though July 2007 for faster operation.
· Operation tested under Rosetta emulation on Intel Mac.
· Updating is recommended for all users, to maintain accurate displays during 2006+.
· There is no charge for this update to registered users of version 3.0 or later.

EarthDesk replaces your static desktop picture with ever-changing, beautiful maps of the world with correct sun and moon illumination.Eleven different projections.Political and satellite maps.

Zoom from 50% to 400%.City lights appear at night.Atlas contains 10,000 cities.EarthDesk gives you numerous options for configuring the map images placed on your desktop.

Map centering options include:Natural origin (0N, 0E).User-defined city.Subsolar point.Subsolar antipode.Sublunar point.Sublunar antipode.

EarthDesk uses the same Atlas database technology as Time Palette, providing the application with detailed geographical and time zone information for 10,000 cities throughout the world.

The Atlas maintains comprehensive rules for Daylight Saving Time (Summer Time), giving EarthDesk a level of accuracy unmatched by other applications.

EarthDesk gives you numerous options for configuring the map images placed on your desktop.

Maps can be centered on a city, so that the map remains stationary while the sun and moon move. Alternatively, the map center may be locked to the position of the sun or moon so that the shadow remains fixed, while the map moves.

For example, by centering on the subsolar point, the map will move throughout the day so as to keep the sun in the center of the screen, as in this Azimuthal projection.

Earthdesk automatically conforms its maps to the aspect ratio of your screen, for a perfect fit with adjustable zoom control.

Unique to EarthDesk is accurate rendering of moonlight on the Living Earth satellite map. To create this stunning effect, the phase of the moon and reflectiveness of the Earths surface are used to determine correct coloring of the image.

Here are some key features of "EarthDesk":

· beautiful addition to any Mac system.
· Accurate sun, moon and city lighting.
· High quality twilight shading.
· Automatically updates when waking from sleep.
· Moonlight shading can be turned on or off.
· Complete multi-display support.
· Eleven separate map projections.
· Includes both satellite and political maps.
· Easy to install: Help system and Atlas support files encapsulated in a single application file.


Limitations:

· Watermark on desktop image.

Easy-to-use QuickTime Interactive Movie Editor.

You can use Tattoo to add media skin and interactive buttons on to QuickTime movies.

Simply drag and drop your prepared movie and skin image files on to Tattoo, Tattoo will then create a movie that can be played by QuickTime Player on your skin image frame.
Here are some key features of "Tattoo":

· Easy-to-use Simply drag and drop your prepared movie and skin image files on to Tattoo, Tattoo will then create a movie that can be played by QuickTime Player on your skin image frame
· Control Buttons Add custom control buttons easily: Play, Stop, Go to Beginning, Go to End, Step Forward, Step Backward, Mute, Half Volume, Full Volume, Close Window, Go to URL
· Universal Play-back Movies exported from Tattoo can be played back on various platforms, including Mac OS X, Mac OS 8/9, and Windows (QuickTime 5 or later is needed)
· Uniqueness Give unique experience to your audience.


Whats New in This Release:

· This version adds a new special button action -- Slider. There are 5 types of variable for you to choose from: Movie Volume, Movie Time, Pan Angle, Tilt Angle, and Zoom Power.
· This version enables you to set the window mask and/or the drag mask to your own images. So that you can have total control on the window shape and the dragging area of the exported movie.
· This version lets you to not create the media skin, in case you want to display the final movie in a ordinary rectangular window, or embed the movie in an HTML page.

VelaClock Deluxe is much more than a simple clock! Displays the current level of natural light (daylight, twilight, or night), sun and moon rise/set times, moon phase information, local times and country flags for cities throughout the world.

No internet connection required. VelaClock is a unique widget in that it is completely self-contained. Many widgets are light weight front-ends to web services; such widgets require an internet connection. By contrast, VelaClock is designed to function without an internet connection, and so is particularly useful for laptop users away from their home or office. Astronomical calculations are performed by an internal code module.

Here are some key features of "VelaClock Deluxe":

· Change current date: to change date, click the new calendar icon in the bottom right corner of the front of the widget. Changing the current date allows one to see sun, moon and time zone info for dates in the past or future.
· User-defined places: to add a user-defined place, click on the Edit User-Defined Places button on the back of the widget; this will launch a small utility application to specify city, country, time zone and a latitude/longitude point. Imports from, then shares user-defined places with VelaTerra 1.2

Calendar X is a heavy duty perpetual calendar that offers views across many Calendar disciplines. It computes astronomical events (moon phases, solstice, equinox, moon rise and set, sun rise & set) and displays the information according to the selected calendar system.

Calendar X is a multi functional calendar for Mac OS X.

It supports Julian, Gregorian (in many reforms), Jewish, Islamic, Bahai, Indian Civil, Mayan, Coptic, Ethiopic, Persian, Fasli, Shenshai and Qadimi.

Additionally it will also give date information in Julian, Gregorian, Jewish, Islamic, Bahai", Indian Civil, Mayan, Coptic, Ethiopic, Persian, Fasli, Shenshai, Qadimi, French Revolution, Roman, ISO and Julian Day Number.

Here are some key features of "Calendar X":

· Supports Julian, Gregorian, Hebrew, Islamic, Baháí, Indian Civil, Mayan, Coptic, Ethiopic, Shenshai, Qadimi, Fasli, Persian, Viking, Chinese calendars and date conversions.
· Convert a date between many calendar systems.
· Very flexible and powerful events calculation engine.
· Jump to any Gregorian calendar reform and see how it changed the Calendar.
· Supports many different Gregorian Calendar reforms and allows you do define others. Learn how and why the calendar has changed over time.
· Define multiple locations and switch between them with a simple menu selection.
· Drag your favorite locations from the internal Atlas or define your own from scratch
· Easy to use Daily Planner supporting time stamped and To-Do lists with completion flags for both. (Alarms are not supported in this release but will be in an upcoming update.)
· Drag a Daily Event and Planner summary from the calendar grid by shift clicking on any date into any text document. The data will be represented in the selected calendar system.
· Generates HTML Calendars.
· Provides a custom "My Calendar" view which can display two calendar date systems, history, events and planner information as well as primary moon phases and solstice & equinox dates.
· Informative This Day in History display that supports speech.
· You can define your own This Day in History events.
· Daily Diary with spell checking, rulers, graphics and speech.
· Charts Moon Phases, Solstice & Equinox, Moon Rise/Set and Sun Rise/Set in all supported calendar systems.
· Customize the colors and methods used to mark the calendar.
· Customize the starting weekday for the calendar display.
· Includes an optional Desktop Calendar.
· UNICODE native (Built-in Diary supports UNICODE input).
· Supports Mac OS X international language input methods
· Intuitive interface
· Built-in Software Update and logging facility
· Apple Help format Documentation
· Great Oatmeal Cookie Recipe
· Totally rewritten in Cocoa and Objective-C for Mac OS X.


Whats New in This Release:

· Fixed probelm with Solar Details pre 1904.
· Fixed a cosmetic problem with Persian dates in Info window when the date is before the begining of the Persian calendar era.
· Applied a workaround for a Framework bug saving the main calendar window position on some systems.

WorldViewer is a tool that helps you see the world on your desktop with realtime cloud maps, recent earthquakes, current tropical storms, and your local weather forecast.

Here are some key features of "Worldviewer":

· Plots all recent 5.0 magnitude and greater earthquakes
· Plots tropical storms, their paths and projected paths color coded by storm strength
· Plot any world city
· Displays your local 4-day weather forecast for day and night time
· Display the position of the sun and moon, showing the moon in its current phase
· Universal application for best performance on PowerPC and Intel Macs.


Limitations:

· You can use Worldviewer without purchasing a license with limitations.
· Only 1-day forecast, only one custom city will be plotted, only the three most recent earthquakes and one tropical storm will be shown, and the cloud map will only update every 24 hours.

World Calendar can create calendars in 15 different calendrical systems from around the world.
The information is displayed on a convenient graphical calendar, which also includes holidays, lunar cycles, and solar cycles.

World Calendar supports the following systems.
* Gregorian
* Julian
* Coptic/Ethiopic
* Islamic
* Baháí
* Mayan long count, religious and secular calendars
* Hindu Solar (old and new)
* Hindu Lunar (old and new)
* Indian Civil
* Persian (Iranian)
* Hebrew
* Chinese

Here are some key features of "World Calendar":

· Sunrise and sunset times anywhere in the world.
· Moon rise and moon set times.
· The times of the solstices and equinoxes.
· The time of the full moon, new moon, and the first and last quarters.

OSXmoontool displays Informations about the Moon like Moonphase, next Full-Moon and Earth to Moon Distance.

This program is an OpenWindows tool which displays, as the icon for a closed window, the current phase of the Moon. A subtitle in the icon gives the age of the Moon in days and hours. If called with the "-t" switch, it rapidly increments forward through time to display the cycle of phases.

Whats New in This Release:

· Added support for Mac OS X 10.4.

Atmosphere is a very useful and nice utility..

You can see the weather: A near real time weather simulation application that provides a fun interface into weather forecasting, day/night cycle, moon phases and seasons.

Weather forecasting: View the weather on the timeline, similar to how time machine works. Simply go forward in time to get the weather forecast for your area, or backwards in time to see how the weather was a month ago.

Day/Night cycle: Watch atmosphere smoothly cycle from beautiful sunsets to starry skies.

Moon phases: Now you can howl at the moon in the comfort of your own den! See exactly what phase the moon is in, or use the timeline to see when the moon will be full, a new moon, and more.

Seasons: As the fall passes into winter, watch Atmosphere build up snow and see rain drops turn into snowflakes.

See the sky from anywhere on Earth or lift off and visit any solar system body or any location up to 20,000 light years away. View 2,500,000 stars along with 170+ deep-space objects like galaxies, star clusters and nebulae.

Travel 15,000 years in time. Check out the view from the International Space Station. See planets up close from one of any of their moons. OpenGL support renders stunning 3D graphics for realistic views of the sky.

Print handy star charts to explore outside. Bonus DVD features more than 2 1/2 hours of mini-documentaries hosted by guest experts and accurate visualizations of astronomical objects and phenomena. Learn about the movement of the planets, watch the phases of the moon and see what the stars looked like on the day you were born!

Here are some key features of "Starry Night Pro Updater":

· Enhanced observation planner lets you create detailed lists of targets for an observing session
· New observation logs allow you to store notes, times, sky conditions, equipment used and even images on targets
· Equipment list allows you to store all scopes, eyepieces, binoculars and accessories
· LiveSky panel lets you see up-to-date images of the Sun and Earth from ground and space-based observatories
· Navigate and open your saved Starry Night files easily with the new Favorites panel
· View from anywhere on Earth or select from a database of over 8,000 cities
· See the sky from any location in the universe up to 700 million light years away
· Print personalized star charts of any area in the sky
· OpenGL® support renders high-end 3D graphics
· Create QuickTime movies and export images
· 16 million stars and corrected NGC/IC catalogs
· Online access to 500 million stars
· Tycho 2/Hipparcos 3D star database
· PGC catalog with 70,000 galaxies
· Control most popular brands of computerized telescopes (additional cable required).