Current Starry Night options Vs Skymap Pro 10

[stephenmcnelley]

Hi Astro people, i have been using the Skymap software for over a year now and i have to say it has helped my development as an amatuer to no end in terms of co-relating and learning the night sky, Skymap will basically custmise the planet to solar and then galactic axis/grid representations and so on in the usual two dimensional way and drive a number of popular goto scopes.
In terms of these basic function considerations and especially considering that Starry night has imaging features, what might i expect the latest in Starry Night to provide me over skymap pro 10.
Sorry if this sounds ignorant but if you dont ask.........

[stephenmcnelley]

I guess I should ask has anyone used or played around with both programs and what were your impressions?
Starry Night seems to be the most popular, but not having access to it i am wondering if i am missing out on something. I am an imaging newb and am contemplating beginning some astrophotography using a smallish goto scope (it is not my scope but another members that is loanable) and i am wondering if i am better off with the integrated Starry Night packadge or just sticking to using Skymap and other popular processing software.
Thanks in advance for any help,
Steve.

[CoombellKid]

I have Starry Night Pro Plus 5.8.2

Overall it's a nice piece of software, lots of eye candy. An you can take a
panoramma of your observing site and use it as your horizon, which looks
pretty funky. But I have to say I have a few gripes too, one is it's ability
to print ledgitable star charts (some objects are printed in light red, which
is stupid when it's on white paper under a red light, and you cant change
it either). Daylight saving feature actually puts you 2 hrs out, on a Windows
machine. You need a good graphic card to take advantage of the eye candy.
The user support group seems to be only useful if your north American, you
simply get ignored if your from anywhere esle. Out of the dozen or so Q's I've
posted there I've had virtually zitt!! replies.

As for controlling a scope I'm sure it will perform well, I feel the designers are
aiming for the soft to be used in this fashion, if your a visual observer who
doesn't want to drag the desktop out every night, and needs to print charts
it fails dramatically. For me I would of been better off sticking with The Sky.

regards,CS sunny days

Rob

PS: Oh I forget I did get a reply to one of my posts, some months before
Ver 6 came out. I posted to the support team the printing problem. Their
reply was to post a fix in ver 6, meaning if I wanted it fixed I have to buy
the upgrade. Nice eh'

[stephenmcnelley]

Thanks Coombell, I am surprised that the backup and service isnt that good re patches and upgrades.
Must admit i use skymap chart printoffs outside for starhopping, they are nice and highly customisable so i will take your advice there.
Getting a hand me down laptop :prey: around christmas so will learn more about skymap and its goto then if all works out.
In the meantime, guess i can only hope to find someone in the local area that uses Starry Nights latest offering and listen/see firsthand.
Cheers,
Steve.

[fringe_dweller]

I agree with Rob, for such an expensive and sophisticated impressive lovely piece of software, the online help seems downright amateurish at times, from this Canadian company.
I was even privately abused vicously (email) by a canadian guy who runs the yahoo group, that dom bloke, because I tried to post a reply to someones complaints about some crappy comets related functions, and some phoney advertising graphics they had going regarding tracking comets paths/positions over time in a single map on space.com - I called it lame and misleading/(photoshopped) scam advertising (of course it was censored from list) and he just went off in a private response - unbelievable! he called me lame! LMAO oh the professionalism!
re colour problems with printing maps I just do them in B&W if thats the case - you could always save them to PS or something and greyscale them Rob?

[fringe_dweller]

actually I made a few errors - it was don not dom! and it was my response he called lame, whoops! but I still insist that was a photoshopped graphic
here's the email I received

'Message not approved: Date format of comet path'

'Actually your response is lame. Try a different approach. You have
enjoyed a great product for years and your little comment is
nonsense. It also appears you know nothing of Photoshop. We
Photoshop professionals could do a better job.

Don, Toronto


--- In StarryNight@yahoogroups.com, "martinc1968"
<martin.costelloe@...> wrote:

Hello,

Has anyone had a chance to answer Steve's question?

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StarryNight/message/35166

The date labels that are displayed by default (HH:DD) are a
little
confusing. One one of the starry night pages:
http://www.starrynight.com/sntimes/2006/2006-05-full.html#art5

shows labels formated differently. Would anyone know how to do
this?

Thanks,

Martin


I too await the answer to that with baited breath - I have been
putting up with this non
sense for a few years now - I think those dates have been
photoshopped in myself - Lame!
Kearn'