Binary package distribution

Skycat can be downloaded and installed on a variety of platforms. Just follow the instructions below.

ESO Mac & Linux software repositories

Skycat can be installed as a binary package by fetching it directly from the appropriate ESO software repository. To install the relevant repository for your computer, please follow the relevant instructions at ESO Mac & Linux software repositories. Depending on your operating system, Skycat can then be installed using one of the following commands:

[MacPorts]                sudo port install eso-skycat
[Fedora >= 23]            sudo dnf install eso-skycat
[CentOS 7]                sudo yum install eso-skycat
[Scientific Linusx 7]     sudo yum install eso-skycat
[Ubuntu]                  sudo apt-get install eso-skycat

Skycat from the ESO Mac & Linux software repositories includes the ESO Finding Chart Plugin.

SciSoft repository

Skycat is also available for several linux distributions within the SciSoft collection. Please note that that version does not (currently) include the ESO Finding Chart Plugin.

Running skycat

Once one of the above packges is installed, Skycat can be started by simply running the command

skycat

in any terminal window. The ESO Finding Chart Plugin is then available via "Make finding chart" from the File menu.

Source code

The Skycat source code is available for download from the following link: skycat-3.1.4.tar.gz.

The source code for the required tcltk libraries is available for download from the following link: tcltk-8.4.1-1.tar.gz.

The ESO Finding-Chart plugin is available from: skycatFCPlugin.tar.gz.

The FIMS package source code, which includes the above Skycat tar.gz file, plus all other "non-standard" software dependencies, in particular all requried TCL/TK packages, and a shell script that will perform the compilation for most stanadrd Linux distributions (note the shell script doesn't quite work 'out-of-the-box' for macOS). See the installation instructions here.