Alachua Astronomy Club: FirstLight Tenth Year -- Larkin 1995 October

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FirstLight is the official, monthly publication of the Alachua Astronomy Club (AAC),
Gainesville, Florida USA. Copyright © 1987-99. All rights reserved.

Introduction & Dedication

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1995

Tenth Anniversary Edition: From October 1995 FirstLight

Three Astro Shareware Programs

by Joe Larkin
SkyMap is an inexpensive Windows shareware sky program that is easy to use
and produces excellent views of the night sky

Because the weather was so lousy this month, I am writing about the pros and cons of three good shareware star charting programs. Shareware is a "try before you buy" system. The programmer distributes a demo version for free. This version may be limited in capability than the paid for ("registered") versions.

All of the programs can make maps of the sky. You can zoom in and out, select magnitude limits, show or hide constellation lines, etc. All three programs can show the planets, Sun and Moon and for any time. The three programs vary widely beyond that.

Deep Space version 5 is a very capable program that runs under MS-DOS. It is available on Bulletin Boards and FTP sites as DSPACE5.ZIP. It has several plot types and map projections. It contains a built in observing log. It has an almanac feature with information on Moon phases, planet, Moon and Sun positions, rise and set times, and twilight times. It can generate tables of positions for comets and asteroids. It contains many asteroids and comet, and you can add new ones It has many other features including extensive on-line help. It's limitations are its screen display, limited printing options and small databases in the shareware distribution. The maps on the screen are poor. However, the printouts are good. Unfortunately, the program can only directly print to postscript and certain HP printers. When you register, you get a program to handle more printers. The demo edition has few stars and deep sky objects (DSOs). The two registered versions contains many more. The base version (19,000 stars) is $89.00. The CD-ROM version is $129.00 and contains the Hubble GSC, a star catalog to mag. 16.

SkyMap version 2.2 (SKYMAP22.ZIP) makes excellent maps on screen and printer. It runs under MS-Windows 3.1, and prints to any windows supported printer. It has a very nice interface and good on-line help. The demo version has stars to mag. 7 and many DSOs. A version that can read the GSC is available. If you are just looking for a program to generate maps, this is it. It can also give you rise and set times of the planets, Sun and Moon but provides less information than Deep Space. Like Deep Space, it contains many comets and asteroids and it is easy to add more. SkyMap has an eyepiece and telescope database to calculate fields of view and powers. SkyMap cannot do as much as Deep Space, but it excels at what it does. It costs $39.00 to register the base product (88,000 stars) and $49.00 for a version that can read use the GSC (sold separately).

SkyGlobe (SKYGLB36.ZIP) runs in MS-DOS. It is very limited and provides only one map type. It plots stars, planets (including Sun and Moon) and a few deep sky objects (Messier objects). The shareware version contains stars to magnitude 7.6. The map can be customized, but not extensively. It prints poorly. It can't display comets or asteroids. Despite this, I like it a lot. This program has one thing the others don't — speed. The other programs take few seconds to plot a map. SkyGlobe can plot in less than a second. You can animate the sky with this program. SkyGlobe is ideal when one just wants to see "what's up" at a given time or day. It costs $20.00.

I will have the programs and my laptop at the next meeting. If you want trial copies, bring three high density 3.5" floppies.

(For another opinion on SkyMap, see article by C. Broward in this issue. The Assoc. of Shareware Professionals produces SkyMap. You can obtain SkyMap through SkyMap's Home page on the World Wide Web at URL http://www.execpc.com/~skymap/, or order from JASC, Inc., 10901 Red Circle Dr., Suite 340, Minnetonka, MN 55343. Orderline 1-800-62-2793. FAX 612-930-9172. $39.00; Hubble GSC. Ver. $49.00; S&H $5.00. Ed.)

*C-8 A Celestron 8 Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope. [Ed.]

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