Software and Atlas

[BowzerS14]

Hi everyone
i have had a look through some threads on current software being used however my question is what is a good free software for finding DSO's and so on. I have used Stelarium?? and was looking for something a little more detailed. I have seen many print out star charts and am still trying to understand them (ie: declenation and so on so i know what chart to look at). Any help would be much appreciated.

Cheers

[JohnG]

I would say that Cartes du Ciel would be what you are looking for, you can have as many or as few catalogs as required and it's free. There is also a Beta version 3 available as well.

http://www.stargazing.net/astropc/index.html

You can also use the ASCOM interface to control your telescope as well.

Cheers

JohnG

[CoombellKid]

I would agree with JohnG on that although I dont use it anymore. It's the
best of the free softs

regards,CS

Rob

[74tuc]

Tyr StarCalc version 5.73. Starcalc it is freeware and available from the Starcalc web site. It is almost professional code!! Catalogs are installed as plugins so your version may be very easily updated.

StarCalc is one of the fastest programs around and may be updated with most catalogs that are also available free.

The latest comet and asteroid database is also available.

The Tycho 2 and NGC catalogs come are on the web site. The tycho 2 catalog will map stars to mag. 12 which is pretty good for most uses.

There is, also, a brilliant program that may be run on PDA's initially it is free - please check. The program is PocketStars and is a Celestial Nav. program with a very goog star chart. Pocket stars only contains the Bright star catalog but it is very useful. PocketStars is one of the most accurate charts and it also has real-time readout of the Az and Alt. of a selected object. Eg. If you select the sun at sunset (or sunrise) and watch the sun setting (or rising) and look at the Pocketstars display you'll see that just when you see the sunset the display will be "spot on".

clear skies,

Jerry.

[Ric]

I would have to agree with the above mentioned software choices. I have used both and have found them to be excellent, I wouldn't fault either of them. I now use Star Atlas Pro which is by choice only.

cheers

[BowzerS14]

Thanks guys your help is much appreciated. Now have some good sotware to use.

Cheers

[Don Pensack]

Check out this thread :
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=6323
and go down to the post I made with free object locator and Telrad charts.
Otherwise, for lists of stuff to observe, here are a couple:
http://www.saguaroastro.org/
and
http://www.virtualcolony.com/sac/
and
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?p=145315#post145315