Starlink is a collection of analysis tools for astronomical research.
Installing Starlink
You can install Starlink in Ubuntu using the following procedure. Ensure that you have at least 1.3 GB of free space on your root partition.
These instructions have been tested with Namaka. Replace all <entries> with what applies in your own file system.
Download the most recent version of Starlink from the project release page to a directory of your choice. Most users should download the 32-bit Linux glibc 2.5 package.
Once the download has completed, open a Terminal (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal).
- Change to the directory, where you have saved the download, by typing the following:
cd /home/<username>/<name of the directory>
- Unpack the archive in the directory where you want to keep the installation, for example with the following command, where the filename depends on which version you have downloaded:
sudo tar -xvzf starlink-namaka-Linux-32bit.tar.gz
A new directory should have been created, called star-namaka, or similarly. This contains all of the Starlink applications and documentation.
Open your .bashrc file for editing:
gedit ~/.bashrc
Add the following lines to the end of your .bashrc and then save the file:
# source the starlink profile so we get the starlink env vars export STARLINK_DIR="<path to download directory>/star-namaka" source <path to download directory>/star-namaka/etc/profile
- If not yet available, install the following packages (which are required by some of the Starlink software):
csh
An older version of libexpat is required. Go to the Namaka download page and find the link to the libexpat for the 32-bit release, download and save as "libexpat.so.0" in <path to download directory>/star-namaka/lib/.
Log-out and then log back in again, or type bash to run .bashrc to set the environment variables required for the Starlink software to run.
Start the program you wish to use (for example, type gaia to start the GAIA image analysis application).
Starlink applications
The following is a short list of some of the major applications included with Starlink, and the commands required to run them:
GAIA - Graphical Astronomy and Image Analysis Tool: gaia
PHOTOM - Photometry package: photom
PERIOD - Time-series analysis package: period