Two More Free Star Atlases and Planisphere

[RapidEye]

I found this on another forum earlier in the week. I didn't want to pass along until I could make a review of them.

OK, first up is a nice Mag 6.5 Atlas - Similar layout as Norton's.
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~zs3t-tk/atlas/atlas.htm
It seems accurate, and although it only goes down to Mag 6.5, it does use "standard" Symbols, unlike the free Mag 7 Atlas.
Don't let the on-screen view fool you. If you print it to a decent printer, it looks great. It even looks nice if you shrink it down to 8.5"x11"

Next up is a Mag 8.5 Atlas - Yup, thats right, Mag 8.5 --- He wants to substitute this for his SA2K
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~zs3t-tk/...5/atlas_85.htm
Again, it seems accurate; however, it is STILL A WORK IN PROGRESS - NOT COMPLETE FOR THE SOUTH Sorry fellas as of today it only goes down to -62degrees, but I thought I'd post it anyway so you can use it as soon as he completes it.
I don't know if I like this one...
The scale is sure tight and there is a TON of overlap between pages --- I'll give it a whirl, but I'm not gonna put my SA2K for sale on AstroMart just yet

Finally, a Do-it-yourself Planisphere:
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~zs3t-tk/...lanisphere.htm
As you can see, he was nice enough to give you Southern folks a set of disks too

Here is the author's main website (with links to the above pages)
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~zs3t-tk/index.htm

<BIG SALUTE>Thanks Taki - Nice Work!!!
</BIG>

[Starkler (Geoff)]

Brilliant!
We might look into pinning this.

[janoskiss (Steve H)]

The mag 8.5 looks great, just what I've been looking for. Taki, what a guy! Sky chart & atlas publishers must have a contract out on his head. I'm anxiously awaiting completion of the southern half. Go Taki!

Check out his Crayford made from wood and PVC pipe! That would be sure to please John Dobson.

[acropolite (Phil)]

Sign him up Mike....

[xstream (John)]

Is This Guy a DIY specialist, or what!

Send him an email Mike.

[BC]

I printed out the Mag 6.5 charts on a good A3 printer and tried them out last night. They are the most useful charts I have seen, perhaps because they match very closely what I can see naked eye (I'm probably seeing 5.5) and the fact that so much sky fits onto each chart while giving reasonable detail. I have found Norton's a bit confusing but these were excellent. I could easily identify various open clusters and had a great time without even using the scope. A huge step forward for me in finding my way around; thoroughly recommended

[RapidEye]

Can we get this pinned?

[Starkler (Geoff)]

Done. Thanks for the reminder.

[RapidEye]

You da man!

[janoskiss (Steve H)]

Looks like the mag 8.5 charts are complete!

[lost_in_space]

He has now added a manual, an index, and a spreadsheet containing details of the 2938 dso's included in the charts.

[janoskiss (Steve H)]

Truely admirable effort by Toki! These are excellent free charts even for experienced observers. Very nice "SkyWays" (star directory) format. Print and put in plastic sleeves in a ring binder. Look at all them DSOs! An absolute smorgasbord of galaxies.

[vespine]

wow! This atlas is really great

What I've done is extracted 60 of the highest rated objects according to Clark from taki's extensive object list. I've left out the far north objects but the first few are around +50 to +60 mark so probably not possible from lower Australian latitudes. It's gif format to keep the size small and should print to one page nicely.

The last column "chart number" is the number corresponding to Taki's 8.5 mag atlas, the objects are ordered by this number so objects close together on the list should be in similar regions of the sky. Also because the charts start at north, the further down the list the lower the latitude.

This list contains many naked eye and binocular objects. I'm planning to use it as my "begginers checklist"

[NewMoon (Bill)]

This guy is brilliant, and isn't it great that every now and then we see an individual like this who can produce a better product than the big companies do.

Where can I get an atlas that shows pictures of the objects?
Since it takes time to setup and image an object it would be good to be able to select a particular one, say a 'spiral galaxy edge on' and know what that particular one will look like. ie just how edge on, big or small bulge, etc.
And even more so for a nebula. They can be very hard for a beginner to imagine from a brief description.

[bojan]

Hi guys,
Just in case you are after fainter than m8.5 (and other stuff, and do not know already about this website), have a look at
http://www.stargazing.net/astropc/download.html
This is freeware and uses Hipparcos astrometric data for stars... and will also show you the planets, satelites, comets... you will probably never need anything else.
Bojan

PS
Sorry, I just saw that this website was already mentioned in other threads. But still... it is worth mentioning it again and again because new members may not be aware of this wonderful product :-)

[h0ughy (David)]

please be aware Steve Tuma said in an email last month that the freeware version is no longer available, because of piracy et al! he has dramatically cut back development of the software as well.

[bojan]

Hi Houghy, I just tried and it is still there (v2.76, from nov 2004).
Bojan

[h0ughy (David)]

Deepsky Astronomy Software Newsletter



You are receiving this email because you are a past user of my Deepsky software. I wanted to update you on a couple things we have been doing.



In this issue of Deepsky News:

Product Activation No Longer Used in Deepsky
Service Pack 2a for version 2006.01.01 available
Deepsky Website Changes
Deepsky AstroCard Edition
Deepsky Yahoo Groups Back on line
WM5 Workaround - Sort of - for Pocket Deepsky 2
Have you upgraded lately ?
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Product Activation No Longer Required - Effective in Service Pack 2a for version 2006.01.01 of Deepsky, product activation is no longer required. We found that product activation while useful in fighting piracy caused additional support issues and was expensive to maintain. We therefore have removed it. If you are a user of version 2006.01.01, you can download SP2a from our website to remove activation from the software.

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Deepsky Astronomy Software Service Pack 2a is available on our website at http://www.deepskysoftware.net/masterdownload.htm This service pack includes a couple fixes and removes product activation from our software.

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Deepsky Website Changes - Our full downloadable software (eval and purchased) has been discontinued. There are several reasons for this including :

1) To protect against software piracy now that product activation has been discontinued

2) I am scaling back some of my operation so that I can spend more time with family. Deepsky is a one man show and takes a considerable amount of time to maintain. As a result, several of my products including the download version, printed manual, and image CD's have been discontinued.

I am still actively working on my Deepsky software so you can expect to continue to see new features added to the software.

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Watch for it ! - Bob Kepple, author of AstroCards and Coauthor of "The Night Sky Observer's Guide" and myself have joined forces to integrate an electronic version of AstroCards into Deepsky. Bob introduced the product at this years Texas Star Party and will also have copies available at Riverside this year. For more information on this exciting new Deepsky version, visit Bob's website at http://www201.pair.com/resource/astr...Cards/toc.html

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Deepsky Yahoo Groups - Back by popular demand, I have created a new yahoo group for Deepsky software. If you would like to join the group, visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/deepskysoftware/

In addition to the yahoo group, we also encourage you to visit our online forums at http://www.deepskysoftware.net/forum

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WM5 Workaround - Sort of - for Pocket Deepsky 2
Thanks to a user I was able to get Pocket Deepsky running on a WM5 device. There are issues however so anyone should proceed at their own risk.

To get pocket deepsky to work on a WM5 device you must do the following:

1) Use activesync to make a backup of your device in case things go wrong.

2) Download the eVB runtime from Microsoft at http://msdn.microsoft.com/mobility/w...loads/evb.aspx Note that this download says it is for Windows 2003 mobile, however it seems to work on WM5.

3) Copy the downloaded file onto your device and stick it in MAIN MEMORY on your device.

4) Find the file on your device and click it to install the eVB runtime. Make sure you install it into your main memory and not a storage card.

5) Once installed, install Pocket Deepsky. You can install Pocket Deepsky onto a storage card.

6) Soft Reboot your device

7) Run Pocket Deepsky


LIMITATIONS

Technically, WM5 does not support Pocket Access databases, which Pocket Deepsky uses, however everything still seems to work. However you cannot apparently use activesync to copy observing plans down to your device. Although the device will read the existing pocket access databases already on it, you cant take a MDB file and convert it to CDB.

Also, while Pocket Deepsky appears to work ok, I have noticed that in some cases Pocket Deepsky will stop working and unload itself.


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Upgrade Today and Save!



Have you upgraded lately? The current version of Deepsky Astronomy Software is version 2006.01.01 SP2a. I am pleased to announce that any prior user no matter how far back they originally purchased Deepsky, are eligible to upgrade to our latest CD or DVD version. The upgrade versions are full versions of our software and do not require any activation or password to use. If you are interested, visit http://www.deepskysoftware.net/buyit.htm





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Thanks


Steven S. Tuma





Deepsky Astronomy Software

1425 Greenwich Ln.

Janesville, WI 53545

Contact: Steven S. Tuma (608) 752-8366

Website: http://www.deepskysoftware.net

Email: stuma@deepskysoftware.net


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Copyright © 1996-2006, Steven S Tuma. All rights reserved.

[bojan]

OK.... you were talking about Deepsky, and I was talking about Cartes du Ciel
So both of us were right
Bojan

[Don Pensack]

5800 free object locator charts:
http://www.cloudynights.com/item.php?item_id=1237
free Telrad finder charts
http://www.atmob.org/library/member/skymaps_jsmall.html