3-D Star Maps * Interstellar Navigation * Data on Stars & Extrasolar Planets
The countless stars of the dark have long inspired awe. But having deduced these small lights to be radiant suns like our own, many now wonder what lies at such faraway places. For, while we have no means of fast interstellar travel today, we can dream that our descendants will.
Stars within 10 light-years of Earth:
Stars within 20 light-years of Earth:
ChView is intended as a three-dimensional aid to: viewing some of the nearer stars of our galaxy; navigating the distances between them; accessing basic information (and updating what we know); and, hopefully, having some fun. Data files updated to Hipparcos distances currently provide nearly 8,500 stars and other celestial objects believed to lie within 150 light-years (ly) of Earth, in a 300-ly diameter sphere. It is our hope that we or others will eventually create related software that can be used to use a selected star (or multiple star system) and, based on available data and known astronomical relationships, create your own star system (of planets, moons, asteroids, Kuiper belt, Oort cloud/cometary halo, and even human colonies or space communities) to voyage between them.
ChView is brought to you by Jo Grant and Ben Lin with the assistance of other subscribers of the CHERRYHLIST discussion group at jaymin@maths.tcd.ie. While some of us have been collecting star data for years, all of us are fans of the Hugo-winning author, C.J. Cherryh, who has developed an intriguing scenario for human colonization of our neighboring stars. As you may have guessed, the name "ChView" is a tribute to her. Depending on where you obtained this copy of ChView, in fact, some of the "Place Names" assigned to selected stars may be the names of Cherryh's fictional human colonies -- easily changed to suit your fancy.
Copyright © 1998-2000 by Jo Grant and Ben Lin. All Rights Reserved. ChView including all program, data, and documentation files) is the sole property of Jo Grant and Ben Lin and must not be copied or reproduced in any form without permission from one of the copyright owners, except for personal use.
Comments and suggestions can be sent by e-mail to sol@nova.org.
File updates can be obtained from this Web site (http://members.nova.org/~sol/chview/) or by anonymous FTP from "members.nova.org" in the "users/sol/chview"directory, or from http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~jaymin/chview/, or by anonoymous FTP from ftp.maths.tcd.ie in the "pub/jaymin/chview" directory and from chview.nova.org in the "users/sol/chview" directory.