Sky & Telescope magazine is pleased to make available in machine-readable form the programs that have been published in its monthly Astronomical Computing department, which first appeared in April 1984, and later in the Computers in Astronomy department. These are offered as-is and without support.

The table on the following three pages lists the programs in reverse chronological order. Each name is a hyperlink; if you select the name and your Web browser supports simple ASCII file transfers, you'll automatically download the BASIC program.

Whenever possible the programs are written in simple generic BASIC, but there are unavoidable variations from one interpreter to another. In case of difficulties, check your BASIC manual. A few programs require specific graphics adapters or printers. To run these programs, you will need a BASIC interpreter for your computer. If you do not know if your computer has one, see Stuart Goldman's article, "BASICally Speaking," adapted from the April 1996 issue of S&T.

At the end of each program is a block indicating the issue of the magazine in which the program appeared together with supporting text and instructions. If you have any questions, please consult the original articles.

BASIC Programs from Sky & Telescope Magazine
File Name	Issue	Brief Description
ROCKET.BAS	Feb 02, p. 66	Travel time for a space trip at relativistic speed
DAYSOLD.BAS	Nov 01, p. 63	Determine date after input number of days after birthday
LOOKBAK2.BAS	Aug 01, p. 62	Cosmological quantities of an accelerating universe
PILLAR.BAS	May 99, p. 71	Simulate the appearance of a Sun pillar
MSACHART.BAS	Oct 98, p. 63	Millennium Star Atlas chart number
SUPERNUM.BAS	Sep 98, p. 70	Emergence angles of supernumerary rainbows
VISLIMIT.BAS	May 98, p. 57	Visual limiting magnitude from any site
CCDLIMI2.BAS	May 98, p. 117	Limiting magnitude of a CCD camera
LOOKBACK.BAS	Sep 97, p. 59	Age and distance of a galaxy of known redshift
SOLAROSC.BAS	Jun 97, p. 92	Visualize global solar oscillation modes
SUNDOG.BAS	Jan 97, p. 103	Simulate the appearance of sundogs
CRATER.BAS	Nov 96, p. 90	Find the dimensions of an impact crater
BLKHOLE1.BAS	May 96, p. 92	Determine the mass of a black hole
BLKHOLE2.BAS	May 96, p. 92	Calculate black-hole tidal forces
BLKHOLE3.BAS	May 96, p. 92	Generate a black-hole "accelergram"
FACECIRC.BAS	Mar 96, p. 84	Print setting-circle disks on a LaserJet
SCALES.BAS	Mar 96, p. 84	Print setting-circle strips on a LaserJet
AGEUNIV.BAS	Jan 96, p. 92	Age of the universe since the Big Bang
PULSAR.BAS	Oct 95, p. 86	Relativistic precession in binary orbits
CHANCE.BAS	Jun 95, p. 86	Odds of witnessing certain astronomical events
SATRINGS.BAS	May 95, p. 92	Saturn ring-plane crossings
JACK.BAS	Sep 94, p. 78	Demo of perturbed planetary motion
SUNUP.BAS	Aug 94, p. 84	Times of sunrise/set at any place on Earth
MOONFX.BAS	Apr 94, p. 86	Moon phase and distance on any given date
CAPTURE.BAS	Feb 94, p. 85	Best film/camera combos for capturing meteors
SUNTAN.BAS	Jul 93, p. 83	Effects of ozone, haze, on suntanning time
ASTEROID.BAS	Jun 93, p. 83	The size of an asteroid from its brightness
CCDLIMIT.BAS	Feb 93, p. 84	Compute the signal-to-noise ratio of a CCD
OCCVIS.BAS	Jan 93, p. 89	Compute the visibility of a star near the Moon
ROTATE.BAS	Sep 92, p. 318	Field rotation in a misaligned telescope
GFLASH.BAS	Feb 92, p. 200	Simulate the appearance of the "green flash"
PRECESS.BAS	Oct 91, p. 408	Rigorous precession of a star's coordinates
LIST.BAS	Aug 91, p. 182	Make index lists of objects on star atlases
SOLARECL.BAS	Jul 91, p. 71	Predictions of July 11, 1991, solar eclipse
FIREBALL.BAS	Jun 91, p. 640	Calculate descent of a fireball