Window to the Stars

A graphical interface to the TWIN stellar evolution code.

See INSTALL for installation instructions.

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Window To The Stars was conceived over a snowy christmas while
Rob was visiting Heidelburg. Sure, the markets and wine were 
nice but he was so bored, and was coming down with bronchitis, 
that he started this project. A trip to the inlaws in .ch 
proved the last straw to his sanity, and WTTS was born.

WTTS replaces the need for crude ASCII files and a zillion
control scripts and plotting routines which used to be the norm
for users of the TWIN (or STARS) stellar evolution code. We're not
in the 1960s anymore! So now you have a fully-featured GUI:

* Select starting model from a ZAMS library or a pre-saved model
* Evolve single and binary stars
* Load and save whole models sets
* Interactive control over all the stellar evolution parameters
* Follow the evolution of the star, in old-fashioned text 
* Or as a Hertzsprung-Russell diagram
* Colour the HRD with 'true' stellar colours
* Label the HRD with a third variable as the star evolves
* Watch each variable as your star ages
* Follow the internal structure of your star as it evolves
* Animate these images
* Coloured surface plots allow 3D plotting e.g. Kippenhahn plots
* Save images as PNGs for the web, Postscript for papers, or 
  even as animated GIFs
* It is all free, and uses free software.

Currently, WTTS is used in Utrecht and Nijmegen. It is useful for
research, teaching and playing around.


It is still in it's official 'testing' phase, and may never escape from
there. However, it is quite stable and works on PCs running Linux and 
on Macs (with Darwin). It probably works on Windoze but nobody around
here uses M$ software... so I cannot test it!

WTTS is copyrighted material, but feel free to pass it on. You will need 
permission from Peter Eggleton to distribute the TWIN code.

Have fun and enjoy!

The WTTS Team

Rob Izzard
(Université Libre de Bruxelles)
Evert Glebbeek
(University of Utrecht