WinEphem -- An ephemerides program for Windows

WinEphem

An ephemerides program for Windows

Current version: 1.09, 24 January 2002

As an exercise in learning Microsoft Foundation Classes, I wrote a GUI interface for Elwood Downey's well-known ephemerides program, ephem, which was originally written for a text-based Unix system. I call my Windows version WinEphem. It doesn't have all the functionality of the original ephem (but I'm working on it...), but hey, it's GUI. You can download it here as a ZIP file. The program is completely free of charge. (About Intron Varia Consultants)

Installation instructions: Download the WinEphem.zip file to your hard disk, and use WinZip or a similar unzipping tool to extract the four files that the ZIP file contains. (If you don't have an unzip program, E-mail me and we'll figure something out.) These are the executable (WinEphem.exe); the Ephem database file (ephem.db); the latitude/longitude database file (LatLong.csv); and the "uninstall" program to clean the Windows Registry (WinEphemClean.exe -- see below). They should be extracted to the same directory on your disk. Then just double-click on WinEphem.exe to run it. The ephem.db file is needed only for dynamically selecting objects other than the major planets ("Object X" and "Object Y"). The first time you run WinEphem, you'll be asked to input your location (or, if you prefer, an explicit longitude and latitude); the program will remember this information thereafter. You can change longitude, latitude, or any parameter by clicking on it.

"Missing MFC42.DLL file": Older versions of Windows 95 do not include a system file called MFC42.DLL, required by WinEphem. Some newer systems have this file, but it is out of date. If you get an error message of this nature, here is a copy of the correct file (again in ZIP format). You should copy it into the same directory as WinEphem.exe, then unzip it. Do not copy this file unless you get an error message about MFC42.DLL. If you get a message about any other missing DLL file, let me know. This should not happen with the current version of WinEphem.

Uninstall instructions: I haven't yet done an InstallShield-like interface for installing and uninstalling WinEphem. Uninstalling consists of four steps: (1) Delete WinEphem.exe; (2) delete Ephem.db; (3) delete LatLong.csv; and (4) run WinEphemClean, which deletes the Registry keys that WinEphem uses. Once you've run it, you'll probably want to delete WinEphemClean.exe as well. For those interested, the Registry keys are found under:
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Intron Varia".

The program has been tested with Windows XP, Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Windows 95 and 98, and it should also work with Windows ME and 2003. It has been virus-scanned with McAfee before uploading and found clean. Someday I'll put the Visual C++ source code on this page, but I'm not proud of it yet.

Here is the revision history in case you're interested, along with a list of known bugs in the current version. Please check back here occasionally, as I try to upload a new version once every now and then. WinEphem is far from perfect; I welcome all feedback.

New versions: If you would like to be informed whenever a new version of WinEphem is released, click here and press "Send".

By the way, Elwood Downey has written his own GUI interface, called Xephem, for X-Windows. Check out his Xephem page for more information.

Please E-mail me with any comments you may have on WinEphem.

You are visitor number to the WinEphem page since 21 January 1999.

This page was last updated on 14 January 2006.