GnuSkies

The GnuSkies Project is an attempt to create a 'Total Plug In' (TPI) application which will eventually contain many features not yet implemented in xephem.

Listed below are some of the crude initial modules that are currently under development. Please note that these will likely be updated and can considerably change in the near future. Please feel free to contribute your ideas about any of these:

Total Plug In (TPI) base - Bill (aka Crash) is developing the TPI core which will allow the rest of the application to be developed as plugins.
SQL database server (plugin) - with star catalogs, orbital elements for the trajectories of well known objects, and so on... We will most likely use the PostgreSQL server for this since that is available under GPL. Mark (our SQL guru) has volunteered to do this part, and Chip already has some rudimentary code written.
Planetarium-like display facility (plugin) - so that objects in the sky can graphically displayed on a computer screen in so that it looks just like the night sky on any given day at any given time. Chip is leading the development on this part of the project.
Ephemeris backend - covering the most basic functionality. Darren already has some code in place for this section.
Orbital computation/estimation module - Darren and Rahul will be working on this part of the project.

These modules were chosen because they are relatively fundamental. Please send in your opinions and feel free to make any additions. We are always looking for additional volunteers to help us with our development efforts. In addition to the above areas, we need help with the following:

GUI design and development
Graphics - icons, bitmaps, etc.

The Development Squad

The current software development team consists of the following members:

Chip Coldwell
Bill Yerazunis
Darren Leigh
Mark Gollahon
Rahul Mittal
Walter Brisken

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Updated: 28 june 2000 prash