Good starchart or Atlas software?

[Garyh]

Hi everyone...:hi:
Having no software on my computer and just having some basic starcharts on cd and a old Nortons star as a guide, I find myself constantly looking on the net for info, co-ordinates etc for IC and NGC objects that I can image with my setup.
I would love to get something that has all or plenty of the NGC, Messier, Cadwell and IC objects with details/size/brightness etc and locations and offcause charts of the surrounds. Even pics of the objects would be cool too!!
Anyone have any suggestions on whats suitiable and not too expensive.
Will be on a stand alone pc in my observatory (when finished) with no internet connection possible for sometime.
cheers and thanks for any recommendations.....:thumbsup:

[bojan]

CDC (Cartes du Ciel) :-)

[hickny]

Great free software I use at http://www.southernstars.com/skychart/index.html
I'm only a novice but really like Skychart and the price cannot be beaten.

[JohnG]

As already mentioned Cartes du Ceil (Star Charts) together with the catalogs and and also Virtual Moon Atlas, both free:

http://www.ap-i.net/skychart/en/news/version_3_beta_0.1.2

http://astrosurf.com/avl/UK_index.html

If you want an excellent Australian program, Star Atlas Pro, Advanced Version.

The above programs work with ASCOM for telescope and mount control.

Cheers

JohnG

[ving]

i use cartes du ciel. its free and you can add catalogues like wds easily! :)

[Garyh]

Thanks Bogan, Peter, john and David!!! Yeah have heard about CDC before but never realised it was freeware.....Downloaded latest version and running but it shows no stars? do I have to download databases to show the usual stars down to mag 6.5?
Also what DB`s are recommended for deepsky and galaxies ?
A bit confusing but will get there!!
Thanks so far guys for the info!!
cheers

[ving]

showing no stars? maybe its cloudy :P

just kidding, what time of day did you look at it? it runs off the pc's time. also kyou need to put the observing locations co-ords to get an acurate representation. it defaults to somewhere in the northern hemisphere that is not on out time line. fix that and all should be good.

that said, if you view it during day light then it will only show the stars visible (ie probably mag -1 or brighter only). change the time to some time at night to see more :) it also takes into account sky glow fromteh moon too.

[JohnG]

Here is where to get the catalogues:

http://x.astrogeek.org/software/cdc/catalogs.php

They are self extracting so just run them. You will also need to go into Configuration to tick the required catalogues you want to run.

If it is showing no stars, you are probably on Daylight Mode, you can turn that off in the Toolbar, or, it will change during twilight to the full dark mode.

Cheers

JohnG

[crystal_stars]

I have Virtual Moon and CDC. I also have Stellarium (another freeware program), its a bit simpler than CDC but I find it good to go back to when I get frustrated because CDC won't do what I want it to:D .

In terms of star charts I have TUMOL (The ultimate messier observeres log). This is a .pdf file downloadable from seds.org I think. It has coordinates, pictures and a small chart for finding each of the objects.

Also in the beginners section of IIS there are links to free star charts. A guy named Taki has produced a mag 7 and mag 8 star atlases both downloadable in pdf. Last week I enlarged the mag 8 charts to A3 size to make them easier to read when observing.

cheers.
C.

[Garyh]

Thanks Guys, I should have noticed it was cloudy!!!...lol
Ok found out the older stable version 2.76 has basic cataloges with it but the latest doesn`t, you have to install the base cat and configure to get it working...So installed the old version then done a install of the new version in the same directory....and behold it picks up the older cataloges and is now all working...great software, heaps to learn about and tinker, bit of a learning curve here!!!
thnks everyone for the replies and help!!
Cheers and CS