NightCal [freeware]

[Tami]

[url=\"http://www.nightcal.co.uk/\"]NightCal[/url] is a simple, practical tool for basic observation session planning. It is designed to produce a monthly calendar telling you when it gets dark, when the Moon rises and sets and what the Moon should look like when it does make an appearance. It also provides data on the elongation of the inferior planets and a quick aide mémoire for planetary conjunctions. The calendar can be printed so that you can stick it on your notice board at home or in your observatory or it can be saved as a graphics file for inclusion in newsletters or for publishing on the web. NightCal is not designed to be an all-singing, all-dancing repository of all human knowledge about the Moon and planets or a tool for detailed planning of observing sessions; there are much bigger and better programs and websites available to do that.

Inputs. All you will need is your longitude and latitude and your time zone, the programming will do the rest. The new version (0.7.2c) allows you customise the general layout of the calendar, what information will be displayed on it and how that information will be displayed.

System requirements. It would appear that NightCal will run on almost any computer with a Pentium processor and any version of Microsoft Windows from Windows '98 onwards. There are no firm plans at present to release any other versions of this software for use with any other operating systems. NightCal will take up 3.5 Mb of your hard disk space.