Welcome to the Stargazy website! This is the website of Bill Smith, amateur astronomer, and through it I hope to show you some of my interests. As the name of the website suggests, this website is largely dedicated to astronomical matters, and not, as some might assume, to Cornish fish recipies! (Check out stargazy pie!) However the Cornish connection has some foundation, as my Cornish wife will testify. This site is not intended to offer a comprehensive coverage to astronomy, just some things that interest me. These are sometimes mathematical and/or computational but they are linked into some practical observations too. I hope you find it an interesting diversion.
Most of the programs featured here are written in Java. In past times these could be run automatically in your browser as Java Applets, but security issues inherent in Java made most browsers outlaw this approach. So, unfortunately, you will need to download the program's .JAR file and run it locally on your own machine. To do this you first need to install the Java Runtime Environment (JRE). If this is already installed you may find it necessary to upgrade your JRE to the most recent version. Then you can run the programs in a command window using the command:
java -jar program_name.jar
where program_name is the name of the particular program. Alternatively you can encapsulate this command in a desktop launcher. Please refer to your system manual to find out how to do this.
Contents
1. Eclipses of the Sun
2. Transits of the Sun
3. The Gravity Laboratory
4. Astro Gallery
5. Astronomy Tools
6. Essays in Science
