Fchart3

Fchart3 is a Python project designed to create high-quality astronomical charts using data from Stellarium, Kstars, and HnSky, including 300 million stars. It can generate both offline charts with output to PDF and online interactive charts, as demonstrated in the CzSky project.

Online interactive version available on project CzSky:

• CzSky Chart

Install

Download this project and run:

python setup.py install

Run

To see command-line options, use: fchart3 --help

Generate findchart for Crab Nebula: fchart3 M1

Generate complex chart of M39 (m39.pdf) region: fchart3 -width 190 -height 270 -fieldsize 40 -limstar 9 -limdso 9 --show-nebula-outlines --show-enhanced-milky-way --font-style-bayer bold --font-style-dso italic --flamsteed-numbers-only --show-equatorial-grid --hide-map-orientation-legend --hide-map-scale-legend m39

Generate complex chart for M39 (m39.tikz) region with output to TIKZ format. fchart3 -f m39.tikz -width 190 -height 270 -fieldsize 40 -limstar 9 -limdso 9 --show-nebula-outlines --show-enhanced-milky-way --font-style-bayer bold --font-style-dso italic --flamsteed-numbers-only --show-equatorial-grid --hide-map-orientation-legend --hide-map-scale-legend m39

Previous Projects

The sources of the original project fcharts can be found at:

• https://www.astro.rug.nl/~brentjen/fchart.html

Previous fchart sources for python2.7 can be found at:

• https://github.com/Fingel/fchart

Data files

This repository also contains the following catalogs in the data/catalogs directory:

• bsc5.dat catalogue of bright stars
• constbnd.dat Catalogue of Constellation Boundary Data
• constellationship_western.fab - western constellation lines from Stellarium
• milkyway.dat - outlined Milky Way
• milkyway_enhanced.dat - shaded Milky Way
• deep_sky.hnd - catalog of deepsky objects from Hnsky created by Han Kleijn (https://www.hnsky.org/software.htm)
• namedstars.dat - catalog of named stars from kstars
• outlines_catgen.dat - nebulae outlines from OpenNGC
• PGC.dat - catalogue of PGC galaxies
• PGC_updates.dat - actualizations of PGC catalogue
• starnames.dat - star names from kstars
• stars_0_0v*.cat - UsnoNomad catalogs from stellarium
• unamedstars.dat - catalog of unamed stars from kstars

Authors

• Michiel Brentjens - original author
• Austin Riba - modern fchart for python 2.7, numpy. https://github.com/Fingel/fchart
• Vladimir Dvorak - fchart3: python3 + pycairo support. Rectangular view, constellations shapes, borderlines. Support for stars up to 16mag using HTM (hierarchical triangular mesh) and USNO NOMAD catalog.