Star guides

[jps]

When I bought my telescope I looked at some charts in the shop and they didn't seem much better than those from my local library. So I decided to use these for a start and fill in the gaps using my search engine.

It's worked fine so far but it's not as convenient as it could be. My hunger for better star charts was rekindled yesterday when someone pointed out what winstars 2 could do. Wow, that sounds great but I only have a pent 3 with 128 mb ram and no cards. No match.

Ideally I would want a chart that shows all the dso's I could see and perhaps a few just out of visual reach, just in case. And of course, stars too.

I'm not sure that I can properly describe how dark the sky is where I view when I leave the suburbs. I have seen m7 easily with the naked eye there. Near Normanville SA is the location, about 120km out of Adelaide along the South coast.

My telescope is an 8" newt F/3.75.

So, can anyone out there suggest suitable software, books or sites?

[rmcpb]

Have a look at this site. It has lots of info that may be of use http://www.fourmilab.ch/yoursky/

Trying a Google search for sky charts or planisphere is also another option.

Good luck

[jps]

Yeah, that site does look very useful.

Thanks heaps for that rmcpb.

[davidpretorius]

this is quite neat http://www.skyviewcafe.com/skyview.php

[Wombat_In_Space]

I use this program on my lappy I know it will run on low end hardware as I have in on a P133Mhz 98mb ram IBM lappy as well.:)

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

[RapidEye]

Agreed!
CdC is totally awesome! Can't beat the price either ;)

The only thing he needs to be carefull with is the cataloges - some of them are quite large. Any Laptop that old probably doesn't have excess HD space.

G'Luck!

[Thiink]

I normally download the skymaps.com maps monthly and try and work my way through them, but lately havent been able to use them due to the weather. I like how it contains three catagories of visable objects; naked eye, binocular and telescope.

Give them a try:
http://www.skymaps.com/downloads.html

[seeker372011]

CdC is the way to go..print it out and you have a chart that you can take anywhere without worrying about a laptop