Sky View Cafe

[prova]

I'm looking for a really nice easy to use (visual) star finder software and I've been recommended to the Sky View Cafe, if this is one that is recommended should I be paying the $15 and downloading it?

Any recommendations for a first-timer would be appreciated

:)

[erick]

The on-line version of Sky View Cafe is free to use. Yes it costs if you want to download.

There are certainly better and more sophisticated software, even to download and run stand-alone on your computer. I use Stellarium, which is free.

I recommend Sky View cafe as a good place to start if someone is completely unfamiliar with such software. It's very easy to use.

Eric :)

[prova]

Thanks again erick, I'll give it a whirl ..

[erick]

I guess the key issue with Sky View Cafe is that you cannot zoom in to a small section of sky. You can choose different views that get you a little closer to the point of interest. But it's very good on the "big picture" to orient yourself, and very easy to go forward and back in time, one minute, ten minutes, 1 hour, ten hours, one day,.........,1000 years (if I remember correctly!) at a step.

[prova]

erick or anyone else that can answer my question, I looked at Sky View Cafe last night but hope tonight to actually make use of it and start looking for planets but it asks for my current location - it does say Australia then Canberra but I'm not sure where to find my co-ordinates and is this required to search for Mars/Saturn which I plan on doing tonight ??

Thanks

[erick]

Look under "Quick Tips" on the RHS of the window. There is a heading "Location". Read up on the the "Find" option.

Then, in the main window, in the "Location Settings", locate the "Find" Button. That opens a box, insert "canberra, australia" and it finds just the one location. Highlight and click OK and the view should be of the sky above Canberra. Experiment with the options to turn on/off naming of stars and planets, changing your view in the top box. Then change the time upper left to move back and forward to see when the object you want is in view. (Read up on the "Time" heading in "Quick Tips".

:)