Radiant

Download Radiant (author Rainer Arlt)

The software calculates density distributions of meteor radiants. The disk-read procedures interpret meteor co-ordinate data in the PosDat and FIDAC formats. The user should have some basic knowledge of creating dBase files. The density distributions are gnomonically projected, thus simplifying the calculating procedures. For most radiant searches the investigated area is small enough (<20° across) that the scale change over this gnomonic chart can be neglected.

Radiant knows three methods of radiant determinations: backward tracings, intersection counts and probability distributions.

Radiant is a product which developed by its users. I would like to specially thank Malcolm J. Currie for his numerous suggestions, Andre Knofel for testing the current version and setting up the FIDAC file structure, Ralf Koschack for mathematical ideas and the analysis of plotting and velocity errors, Luis R. Bellot for modifying the angular speed formula, Detlef Koschny for setting up the PosDat file structure and many more.

For Windows Vista and Windows 7 users only: Radiant is a 16-bit DOS program and as such you will not be able to run it even from the command prompt, you would get an error message: "This system does not support fullscreen mode. Choose 'Close' to terminate the application." Changing compatibility settings in the properties window of the RAD14.exe file won't help you either. There is still a simple and comfortable solution for this problem by installing the DOSBox program, which emulates DOS and thus lets you run 16-bit DOS programs. DOSBox is a freeware and can be downloaded from its official website; its installation process is quite simple and doesn't require any further explanation here. Note: You will NOT need DOSBox for running the Project Editor, you can run it directly from the Windows Explorer.