New! User horizons can be displayed

C2A (Computer Aided Astronomy) is a Planetarium software that allows you to build detailed views of stellar fields. An important objective of this software is to take into account the main catalogues available to professional and amateur astronomers in order to prepare observations on small fields as well as astrometry and photometry works. C2A is also an easy to use general purpose Planetarium software.

C2A is able to display the following catalogues: SAO and GCVS (both provided with the program distribution), Guide Star, Hipparcos, Tycho-2 (all three can be downloaded from this site in the Catalogues page), USNO-SA1.0, USNO-A2.0, USNO-B1.0, UCAC1, UCAC2 and NOMAD (which are not provided with the distribution because of their size). For photometry purpose, C2A natively integrates the Loneos catalogue (UBVRI photometry of faint field stars). Regarding deep sky objects, C2A is provided with 2 catalogues: the Revised New General Catalogue and Index Catalogue (credit Wolfgang Steinicke - see the site Revised New General Catalogue and Index Catalogue) as well as a catalogue of Deep Sky objects based on the RNGC and NGC2000. C2A is also able to display field images transferred from the ESO DSS and STScI DSS (Digitized Sky Survey) server over the Internet. Finally, user have the possibility to associate their own images to various types of objects.

The user can also define its own catalogues of objects, either under the form of text files or compiled catalogues.

C2A has numerous functions including planetary positions, asteroid and comet path display, ephemeris, telescope control, ... All these functions are described in the Information page of this Web site.

C2A is a freeware. It can be used freely out of all commercial activity. The author cannot be made responsible for any damage caused by the usage of this software.

In order to download C2A, just go to the Download page.

Author: Philippe Deverchère

Last update : June 25, 2009