VISDAT - the system for recording and evaluating data
              -----------------------------------------------------
                       of visual meteor observations
                       -----------------------------

          developed   1990 - 1995 by Thomas Rattei 
          development 1995 - 1998 by Janko F. Richter 

Especially suitable for visual observation projects.

Homepage: http://www.imo.net/software/visdat/index.html


Version: VISDAT 4.1, English Version (c) 1998
         as self-extracting ZIP-archived file visdat41.exe  
         VISDAT 4.03, German Version (c) 1998
         as self-extracting ZIP-archived file visdat40.exe 

 
1. What can VISDAT do
=====================

 - Recording of plottings, reportings, countings 
 - Measurement of meteor positions by ruler, scanner, graphical tablet 
 - Import of X-Y coordinates from external ASCII-File 
 - Making reports of visual observations according to IMO 
 - Shower association by IMO standard 
 - Changing the shower association criteria for special analyses 
        (for instance, background noise) 
 - Converting reported observations in other formats like POSDAT/VMDB 
 - Archive observations 
 - Browse and edit databases incl. radiant, observer, and site databases 
 - Some analyses like ZHR summaries
 - Supports program RADIANT by Rainer Arlt
 - Execute some dBase compatible commands
         			          

2. How to get VISDAT
====================
You can get the system from the author:

 Astroclub Radebeul e.V.
 Public Observatory "Adolph Diesterweg"
 Auf den Ebenbergen
 D-01445 Radebeul 
 GERMANY
 Tel. +49 351 8305905 

or, more conveniently, 

 for INTERNET-user by anonymous FTP
 
 ftp://ftp.imo.net/pub/software/visdat


3. Requirements
===============
VISDAT needs a 386 IBM compatible PC or higher, DOS, 
3 MB of  memory, VGA.


4. Installation
===============
1.)  Create directory for VISDAT, e.g. \ASTRO\VISDAT
2.)  Copy archive file VISDAT4x.EXE into this directory
3.)  Run: 'visdat4x.exe' (archive will extract itself)

5. Getting started
==================

Change into VISDAT directory and start VISDAT with the program file
(Run 'visdat')

6. Adress of the author for hints, tips, troubles :
===================================================

          Janko Richter
          Martin-Luther-Pl. 6
          01099 Dresden                 Tel.  : +49 351 8026040
          GERMANY                       e-Mail: richte-j@t-online.de