Release Notes BoPlanets
-----------------------
Release: V1.3-Up2
Download site:http://sourceforge.net/projects/bo-planets/

1. Description:
---------------
BoPlanets is a virtual planetarium, which shows the positions of the
 planets in the sun system relative to an observing planet, which can
 be selected out of the planets and the sun. The planets can be shown
 in various views. In the ecliptic view the Cartesian coordinates, in
 the equatorial view right ascension and declination, in the
 horizontal view azimuth and altitude of the planets relative to an
 observing planet are displayed. In the horizontal view the position 
 of the observer on the observing planet can be selected out of a
 list of locations or directly by its longitude and latitude.

You may have a look to the epicycles of the planets, when the earth
 was seen as the centre of the planet system. Or you may observe the
 course of the sun as seen from the mercury, where the sun seems to
 go backwards and then forwards again. You may modify some of the
 orbital parameters to see the effect on the orbital of the planet.

Since release V1.1
A list of  rise, transit and set times of a planet, as seen by an 
observer on the observing planet, may be generated. Times were given 
as GMT date&time or as local date&times at the observer's location on 
the observing planet.

Detailed information can be found in guide_BoPlanets.html in the 
installation directory.

2. Changes and bug fixes of release V1.3 and updates
----------------------------------------------------
2.1 Release V1.3-Up2:
--------------------
1.)Input of decimal numbers
In menu Observer Locations, when horizontal view was selected, and
in menu Rise,Transit&Set-Times the decimal numbers of latitude and longitude
were formatted with the Java decimal separator ".".
In Release V1.3-Up2 decimal numbers are formatted according to 
the current default locale.
For Windows the default locale can be set in System Control->
Regional and Language settings.

2.)Results of rise, transit and set times
The results can now be viewed completely without horizontal scrolling.

3.)Rise, transit and set times of a planet observed by the sun
In V1.3-Up1 the results were incomplete and it took a pretty long time 
to produce the results.
This was corrected in V1.3-Up2. May be, that not many people are interested
in this exotic data. But a bug is a bug and has to be corrected.


2.2 Release V1.3-Up1:
--------------------
In V1.3-Up1 the calculation of minimum and maximum altitude for the 
horizontal view was corrected.
If the absolte values of minimum and maximum declination are different,
then minimum and maximum altitude were determined incollrectlyin release V1.3.
For the natural orbital parameters of the planets this difference is quite small;
so the effect of incorrect minimum and maximum altitude is hardly to see.
But if orbital parameters are modified, then the difference may be
quite significant.
Example:
- observer: Mercury
- planet: Mars
- excentricity of Mars=0.9
- inclination of Mars=-45 degrees


2.3 Release V1.3:
----------------
The main changes in V1.3 regard the presentation of the equatorial and 
horizontal view. The orbitals of the planet are displayed in all views 
in such a way, that their maximum and minimum are nearby the margins of 
the window without distortion. To do that, maximum and minimum of the 
ordinate and abscissa must be determined. This was done mathematically 
exact for the ecliptic and logarithmic ecliptic view.
For the equatorial view minimum and maximum declination were approximated. 
This worked fine, if planet and observing planet were not too near. For 
adjacent planets as for Mercury/Venus, Venus/Earth, Neptune/Uranus or 
Neptune/Pluto this method failed; the orbitals did not fit within the actual 
window size.
BoPlanets lets you modify some of the orbital parameters (s. menu OrbitalParameters). 
For all combinations of observer and planet there is a parameter combination,
for which this approximation fails completely especially for great numerical 
excentricities.

In release V1.3 maximum and minimum declination is determined in a mathematical 
exact way by using numerical methods. Now all combinations of observer and planet 
with their standard orbital parameters are displayed correctly. This is true for 
most combination of orbital parameters.
The numerical methods used are:
- method of steepest descent/ascent (gradient method)
- 2 dimensional Newton method for solving an equation system of two equations.
  
3. Files of BoPlanets-1.3.zip
------------------------------
BoPlanets-1.3.zip contains the following files:
- /releasenotes/BoPlanets-Release-V1.3.txt: this file
- BoPlanets.jar: the jar archive of the application BoPlanets
- BoPlanets.bat: a script to start BoPlanets (for windows only)
- Appl-BoPlanets.html: starting BoPlanets as an applet
- guide_BoPlanets.html: a description of BoPlanets

4. Installation and Start of BoPlanets:
---------------------------------------
BoPlanets requires Java run time environment  release jre1.6.0 or higher.
BoPlanets was tested with jre1.6.0_13.
If jre1.6.0_x is not yet installed download it from 
http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index.jsp 

and install it in <java install dir>. 
Add the following directory to the system environmental
 variable "path":
<java install dir>jre1.6.0_x/bin

Extract the downloaded zip file to an installation directory.
Open a DOS window and navigate to this installation directory.
BoPlanets will be started by:
 - java -jar BoPlanets.jar
 - preferred on windows systems: javaw -jar BoPlanets.jar (or BoPlanets.bat)

or BoPlanets is started as an applet by openening Appl-BoPlanets.html in a browser.

The form Select Planets will appear. Select the observing planet,
 from which the other planets should be observed. Choose the planets
 to be observed.  Clicking the start button will open the main form
 with the logarithmic ecliptic view of the planets.

5. Other projects
-----------------
Another project of this author is:
- oops-easytrack: a bug tracking system in 2 versions:
  + a lan-based version: clients are connected to the database by lan
  + a web-based version: clients are connected to sun application server via web
- site: http://sourceforge.net/projects/oops-easytrack/


6. License
----------
BoPlanets: Copyright (c) Bernd Ostermann 2007;
eMail: ostermann.bernd@arcor.de

IMPORTANT:
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY
OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT 
LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS 
FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. 
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS 
BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, 
WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, 
ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE 
OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. 

