AstroGrav 3.6 Released for Windows and Mac

AstroGrav adds evolution to specific astronomical events to its precision solar system simulator

12th April 2018 - AstroGrav 3.6 includes a significant enhancement to the evolution commands that allows users to evolve to a range of specific solar system events without a time-consuming trial and error process. It also contains enhancements to the import of asteroids and comets, together with many other minor improvements and bug fixes. Full details are available from:

Evolution to Specific Astronomical Events

With AstroGrav 3.6, it is now possible to evolve immediately to specific solar system events without the tedious trial and error process that was necessary with earlier versions. The types of events covered are oppositions, conjunctions, quadratures, transits, and minimum / maximum elongations and distances. The events can be sought either forward or backward in time, and it's easy to repeat the process so as to find a list of forthcoming oppositions of Mars for example.

An 'Animate' checkbox is provided, allowing the user to choose whether or not to animate the search, with animation switched on making it possible to watch what is happening, and animation switched off being much faster and often simply jumping to the requested event.

Importing Objects

A recent change to the web addresses used by the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center has resulted in earlier versions of AstroGrav being unable to access the data, with the result that the corresponding asteroid and comet import tables appear empty. Version 3.6 fixes this problem, so that these import tables can now be used again. In the event that no data is found when attempting to refresh an import table, AstroGrav now reverts to the cached table, rather than overwriting the cached table with an empty table.

Other Improvements

New commands have been added that make it easy to go to AstroGrav's Facebook page or to email AstroGrav support if help is required. Movie creation has been improved to show hundredths of a second in the display of the movie time. Various simulation settings (such as the last sought object) are now saved along with a simulation so that they appear as defaults the next time the simulation is used, and problems with accented characters have been eliminated.

Upgrade

The AstroGrav 3.6 update is free of charge to all AstroGrav 3 license holders. They may download and install the update immediately from:

About AstroGrav Astronomy Software

AstroGrav Astronomy Software produces astronomical and gravity simulation software for astronomers, researchers, educationalists, and students. For more information, visit the company's website:

Press Contact:
Russell Calvert
AstroGrav Astronomy Software
russcalvert@astrograv.co.uk

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