Sky Charting Software

[DippyHippy]

Hey

To cut a long story short, I'm looking for some planetarium software that can produce what I would call a "half moon" chart of the sky...

In magazines like Astronomy and S&T you get a map showing the entire night sky... elsewhere, for example books, you occasionally see two maps: One showing the view looking due south and the other showing the view looking due north.

Anyone know of any software that will produce something like this?

[seeker372011]

Have you tried Cartes Du Ciel?

its freeware and even though I am not entirely sure that you can get the half moon view it still prints out very nice charts

actually I would be surprised if there wasnt a setting in there that would allow you to customise the view, even though I personally have never used such a setting

(there is just so much of the sky to the south I can see every night from my backyard so I have never bothered to try other settings)

[(Q)]

http://www.heavens-above.com/

This one is fave amongst a lot of amateur astronomers:

http://www.starrynight.com/

[Richard0802]

Hi Dippy-lippy,

I like to use Cartes Du Ciel like Seeker 372011. I have downloaded all of the FREE large star databases and its works well down magnitude +20. You can even load background images of nebula to display on the same star art field. I used Cartes Du Ciel to produce the 2005 comet Machholz finder chart over the page.

This link is actually used by professional astronomers to download relatively up to date photographic plates of any region of the night sky. You can choose 3 plates taken through red, green and blue filters, stack them together to create a full colour image if you want to.

ALADIN SERVER (http://aladin.u-strasbg.fr/java/nph-aladin.pl?frame=launching&-c=10+10+07.68+%2B18+11+12.7&-rm=11&-server=Aladin%2CSimbad)

[DippyHippy]

Hi guys

I actually downloaded Cartes Du Ciel just after I posted... I had it once before but I wasn't too keen on it. It's changed a fair bit since then and I have to say I'm very impressed, especially given it's freeware. You *can* get a kind of half-moon projection but it's not quite what I was looking for.

I have Starry Night Pro... I've just upgraded to v.5 but I'm waiting to get a new laptop (which should be in the next week or so) because the PC I'm using now doesn't have the necessary hardware.

I'm going to play around with Cartes a bit more because it seems to be extremely flexible and, hopefully, even if I can't get exactly what I want, I'll get it pretty close

:)

[Richard0802]

Hi Dippy,

Start up Cartes and the main control menu runs across the top panel. There on the right you will see the half-moon shape that you are looking for, clip that and you can see and scroll round the entire horizon/sky in half-moon shape which is what you want Dippy. By setting the date/time of your sky watching under preferences you can view the half-moon view on any date of the year or years in front/behind. However, its important you tell Cartes your observatory location. It will look like this, although you choose to have constellation figures or not. Hope this helps DippyHippy. ;)

http://uk.geocities.com/patrickfleckney/untitled.png

[Richard0802]

Hi all, This is a short list of links to on-line free planetarium software that you can try out.

Cool Sky (http://www.astronomica.com/)

Distant Suns (http://www.kidsdomain.com/down/mac/distantsuns.html)

Hello Northern Sky (http://www.hnsky.com/software.htm)

Star-finder (http://users.rcn.com/cwhitney.ma.ultranet/index.shtml)

Stargaze (http://www.skymapper.co.uk/html/stargaze.html)

C2a (http://astrosurf.com/c2a/english/)

Sky Orb (http://www.v3x.net/realtech/skyorb/index.html)

Try them out, see what you think and please feed back your comments here to help others decide the best planetarium software for other Forum members to use.

:)

[DippyHippy]

Hi Richard

Yeah, that's what I was doing when I said about how it kinda did the half-moon map thing but the projection system it uses means you don't see what's at the zenith.

However, Cartes *does* nicely render star maps of the entire sky. So much so that I might abandon the half-moon idea and use the full map instead. I shied away from doing that originally because most astronomy software bunch the constellation names so closely together you can't actually read them. Cartes does a very nice job of arranging the text so that you can read them all.

I downloaded and tried Sky Orb but it didn't run well on the PC I'm using (it kept crashing) - this is actually my wife's PC and I'm guessing it doesn't have the graphics memory to handle it.

HALLO Northern Sky has certainly changed a bit since I last used it (although admittedly that *was* 5 years ago LOL) But I don't think it can compete with Cartes for what I want...

I'll check out the others later but for now, Wal-Mart beckons :D

[DisinterestedThirdParty]

I am a great fan of Cartes and recommend it. The symbols and terminology can be a bit challenging to beginners, but can be learned and even changed.

I only download the default databases. They cover most of anything I'd ever be capable of seeing.

Cartes does an excellent job with printing charts. I print out maps of the sky I plan on watching on 11x17 paper, and they really work out for me.

Clear skies...

[jsc248]

:D Hi All,
Has anyone out there tried

www.astrotips.com

This is a brilliant site if you are looking for free downloadable astronomy software. I recommend you all should take a look.

jsc248.

[Richard0802]

You can solve your problem this way Dippy Hippy

Click on My Computer -- click on Control Panel, then click on System. Now select the Performance tab, and then select the Graphics button [Bottom Middle]. The Graphics Accelerator marker comes into view.

Sometimes planetarium software calculate star positions at a speed a little slower than the computer can cope with, by adjusting this marker to the 3rd position from the left everything is more balanced and your program will run without crashing the PC.

This can happen using Cartes when you select to show the images of planets and our Moon as you zoom into them through setting the preferences.

This is worth bearing in mind Dippy. :)

Clear Skies :D

[etrc]

I find the best software to use that can be toggled to suit the "half moon" thats wanted is the "sky" software,it isnt free but then I also use a free astronomy called "klassem" or better known as "skyglobe"

[Richard0802]

Thank you for that Etrc. :)

I have been down loading programs from the site recommended by Jsc 248 above. The vb_Planetarium I am presently trying out is really brilliant and highly recommended by myself. I have never tried ‘The Sky’ yet I have heard about it. I bought the £50 (UK) program ‘Starry Night Enthusiast’ because this is used by Patrick Moore’s SKY at Night program to generate its starry night sky images … its Good I must admit. :rolleyes:

Clear Skies!

[gavwvin]

I've got "Starry Night" bundle edition which came with my Meade telescope, and thats pretty good.

[DippyHippy]

Well, I have Starry Night Pro 5 and although it's a nifty bit of kit, it won't allow you to see the entire night sky... unless I'm missing something. I like Cartes Du Ciel though :)

[Betelgeuse]

Does "Starry Night Pro 5" have a webpage? I've tried search engines but I can't find it anywhere!

Regards
Rigel
:)