
			Welcome to XEphem v3.1

XEphem is an interactive astronomical ephemeris program for X Windows systems
with Motif. Installation instructions are in the INSTALL file.


For a full tour of features and the latest news, please visit and bookmark
the XEphem home page at:

    http://iraf.noao.edu/~ecdowney/xephem.html.


The complete XEphem version 3.1 release kit is a compressed tar file at:

    ftp://iraf.noao.edu/contrib/xephem/xephem_3.1/xephem-3.1.tar.gz.


XEphem requires at least X11R4 of X Windows and 1.1 of OSF/Motif. XEphem is
designed for UNIX systems; it used to work ok on VMS but I have not tested
it with this release.

There is only a superficial manual page, but there is extensive on-line help,
including step-by-step examples. So, the first thing to do is to build XEphem
then start selecting the Help buttons.

I would like to hear from you. My statistics show that less than 1% of those
who ftp the source kit ever get in touch. Your reward for doing so is it
encourages me to keep making improvements, plus I will save your email
address and directly send you announcements of future changes if you like.


Thank you for your interest in XEphem.


Elwood Downey
ecdowney@ClearSkyInstitute.com
