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cdeagle
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Joined: 22/06/2014
Location: United States
Posts: 266

Posted: 04:17pm 04 Nov 2021

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This post describes a portable interactive astronomy calculator using MMBASIC and the Pico Waveshare 2.8 inch display/SD module.

Here's a picture of the ASTROMITE main menu.

Here are two pictures of typical ASTROMITE input screens.

Here is a picture of a typical ASTROMITE output screen.

The main menu resides in flash slot 1. Each application resides in its own individual flash slot. The MMBASIC software for each application has been posted here previously. The input and output of each program was modified for a touch screen.

After an application completes its calculations it returns control to the main menu.

An observer's coordinates are stored in a simply ASCII file called observer.dat on the companion SD card. Here's an example for Cape Canaveral, Florida USA.

************************************
* observer data file For AstroMite *
* Cape Canaveral, Florida *
************************************

observer geodetic latitude(degrees, minutes, seconds)
(-90 degrees <= latitude <= +90 degrees, positive north, negative south)
28, 23, 45

observer geographic longitude(degrees, minutes, seconds)
(-180 <= degrees <= +180 degrees; positive east, negative west)
-80, 35, 55

observer geodetic altitude(meters; positive above sea level)
4

Here's the MMBASIC source code that opens and reads the observer data file.

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Sub observer(obslat, obslong, obsalt)

' read observer latitude, longitude and altitude subroutine

' output

' obslat = latitude (radians)
' obslong = longitude (radians)
' obsalt = altitude (meters)

''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Open "observer.dat" For input As #1

' read 15 lines of information

For i% = 1 To 7

Line Input #1, rem_string$

Next i%

' latitude

Input #1, obslat_deg, obslat_min, obslat_sec

For i% = 1 To 3

Line Input #1, rem_string$

Next i%

' longitude

Input #1, obslong_deg, obslong_min, obslong_sec

For i% = 1 To 2

Line Input #1, rem_string$

Next i%

' altitude

Input #1, obsalt

Close #1

obslat.deg$ = Str$(obslat_deg)

If (Left$(obslat.deg$, 2) = "-0") Then

obslat = -dtr * (obslat_min / 60.0 + obslat_sec / 3600.0)

ElseIf (Val(obslat.deg$) = 0.0) Then

obslat = dtr * (obslat_min / 60.0 + obslat_sec / 3600.0)

Else

term1 = Sgn(Val(obslat.deg$))

term2 = Abs(Val(obslat.deg$))

obslat = dtr * term1 * (term2 + obslat_min / 60.0 + obslat_sec / 3600.0)

EndIf

obslong.deg$ = Str$(obslong_deg)

If (Left$(obslong.deg$, 2) = "-0") Then

obslong = -dtr * (obslong_min / 60 + obslong_sec / 3600)

ElseIf (Val(obslong.deg$) = 0.0) Then

obslong = dtr * (obslong_min / 60.0 + obslong_sec / 3600.0)

Else

term1 = Sgn(Val(obslong.deg$))

term2 = Abs(Val(obslong.deg$))

obslong = dtr * term1 * (term2 + obslong_min / 60.0 + obslong_sec / 3600.0)

EndIf

End Sub

Calli
Regular Member

Joined: 20/10/2021
Location: Germany
Posts: 74

Posted: 04:35pm 04 Nov 2021

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Great!

(I did not flip my monitor up-side-down :)

phil99

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Joined: 11/02/2018
Location: Australia
Posts: 2832

Posted: 12:01am 05 Nov 2021

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Everything looks like that in the antipodes.

Lou

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Joined: 01/02/2014
Location: United States
Posts: 229

Posted: 03:47am 05 Nov 2021

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Very easy to read, I just stand on my head.

Microcontrollers - the other white meat

greybeard
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Joined: 04/01/2010
Location: Australia
Posts: 175

Posted: 03:57am 05 Nov 2021

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In space with zero gravity there is no up or down

Calli
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Joined: 20/10/2021
Location: Germany
Posts: 74

Posted: 07:01am 05 Nov 2021

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greybeard said In space with zero gravity there is no up or down

made my day.

Mixtel90

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Joined: 05/10/2019
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 8297

Posted: 07:47am 05 Nov 2021

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Don't you just love the part of the JPG standard, specifying how the image rotation bits are used, that is so freely ignored by phone manufacturers?

Mick

Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini
Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs

Frank N. Furter
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Joined: 28/05/2012
Location: Germany
Posts: 1000

Posted: 07:58am 05 Nov 2021

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PHANTASTIC!!!

@cdeagle: ...is this really the full code?

Frank

cdeagle
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Joined: 22/06/2014
Location: United States
Posts: 266

Posted: 08:50am 05 Nov 2021

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Anyone know how to import photos without standing on your head? They look fine on my computer.

@Frank ... no, just the code that reads the observer coordinates. Each application is many lines of MMBASIC code.

Frank N. Furter
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Joined: 28/05/2012
Location: Germany
Posts: 1000

Posted: 09:05am 05 Nov 2021

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@cdeagle: Would you provide the complete code here? THANKS!!!

Frank

Mixtel90

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Joined: 05/10/2019
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 8297

Posted: 10:02am 05 Nov 2021

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@cdeagle
You may have to load them into a photo editor and re-save them. In theory the editor will overwrite the rotation bits to the current rotation as it saves. Don't worry too much - this is a really common problem (although, admittedly, I've not seen it on this particular forum before).

My favourite free photo editor is PhotoFiltre 7. It's really good! And IrfanView to view pictures. Deceptively powerful. :)

Mick

Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini
Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs

cdeagle
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Joined: 22/06/2014
Location: United States
Posts: 266

Posted: 12:30pm 05 Nov 2021

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Thanks Mick. I'll check them out. I'm currently using Microsoft Photos which could explain the problem.

cdeagle
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Joined: 22/06/2014
Location: United States
Posts: 266

Posted: 04:06pm 05 Nov 2021

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Attached are photos that don't require standing on your head or turning your monitor 180 degrees. Re-saving with PhotoFiltre 7 did the trick.

cdeagle
Senior Member

Joined: 22/06/2014
Location: United States
Posts: 266

Posted: 04:12pm 05 Nov 2021

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Attached is a zip archive of MMBASIC source code for ASTROMITE.

Note that I have commented out the return to the main menu from each application. This allows each application to run stand-alone.

' return to main menu

' Flash run 1

astromite.zip

Frank N. Furter
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Joined: 28/05/2012
Location: Germany
Posts: 1000

Posted: 06:14pm 05 Nov 2021

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Thank you very, very much!!!

Frank

Plasmamac

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Joined: 31/01/2019
Location: Germany
Posts: 596

Posted: 07:51am 06 Nov 2021

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Thx a lot

Plasma

panky

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Joined: 02/10/2012
Location: Australia
Posts: 1116

Posted: 10:24pm 07 Nov 2021

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Hi cdeagle,

In adapting your programs to run in a 'console mode', I discovered that in moon_phases.bas you use a variable ls. In CMM2 and in Tom's new mmbasic for linux, ls is a system command and thus unavailable for use in a program as a variable.
Renamed this variable and all worked as intended. All your great programs work under mmb4l.
Cheers,
Doug.

... almost all of the Maximites, the MicromMites, the MM Extremes, the ArmMites, the PicoMite and loving it!

cdeagle
Senior Member

Joined: 22/06/2014
Location: United States
Posts: 266

Posted: 09:55am 08 Nov 2021

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Good to hear Doug. All of these astronomy programs for console mode are available on TBS.

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