Best software (other then Excel) for making light curves?

Sun, 10/22/2017 - 16:48

Hi Everyone,

At some point this observing season I plan on observing Algol for the Astronomical League Variable Star pin. One of the tasks is creating a light curve of the eclipse/dimming of the star for several hours with observations every 15mins.

 

Short of plotting it by hand on graph paper anyone have any suggestions for a good program? I have a Mac and don’t have MS Office on it... so no Excel :(

Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
Numbers

... Mac "Numbers".  It's probably already on your computer.

Phil

I just looked at Numbers and

I just looked at Numbers and the Apple website has instructions. I will give that a go with a practice run of example observations tonight and see how it does.

Affiliation
None
Best plottting software

It's matplotlib, by far the most versatile and capable plotting software out there.  And... it's free!  I would recommend running it under Python 3.6, as 2.7 is getting long in the tooth.  https://matplotlib.org/

CS,

Stephen

Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
VStar

VStar would easily do what you want.  Excellent program that you can download from AAVSO.

MatPlot is great for really heavy duty plotting jobs.  Available through both Python and Octave.  And of course MatLab.