Tell Star

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TellStar was the first graphical astronomy program ever available for personal computers. It was released from 1980-1985 by Scharf Software Services and was available for the Apple II computer.

TellStar could predict the position of celestial objects on any point of the earth at any time. Available celestial objects were planets, Messier objects and stars from a star catalog of 500 entries.

Plots could be done in 9 directions, N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW and overhead (a view upwards the sky). Clicking on a star with the joypad would give detailed information on each object, including declination, right ascension, magnitude, rising time and setting time in sidereal time and universal time, and ranges of the year of visibility.