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Pretty Deep Maps v0.2

Martin Meredith

By Martin Meredith
in EEVA - Reports

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Martin Meredith

Martin Meredith

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Release v0.2 of the charts for electronically-assisted observing is now ready. See this earlier thread for details of the project. 

v0.2 consists of complete chart sets for the following constellations:

  UMI LEO COM CRB CRT CRV CVN UMA VIR DRA BOO SER1 LIB HYA SEX LMI HER CAM
totalling nearly 1996 charts in all. This represents a significant proportion of the sky for observers in the Northern hemisphere. More will come in future releases. There will eventually be some 6787 charts covering the entire sky.
Apart from the 25-fold increaase in coverage, the main change since v0.1 is in the finder chart infrastructure, which has been completely revamped using a simpler two-level structure. The 324 finder charts now cover the entire sky and where deep maps are available these can be accessed directly from the finder maps. The deep maps cover 3 degrees of Dec and have a 0.5 degree overlap. The finders cover 16 degrees with a 4 degree overlap.
There have been some cosmetic changes to the deep maps but they are essentially as described in the earlier thread. Future releases will improve labelling in dense areas.
Due to daily download limitations in dropbox I'm going to release the maps in stages over the coming days, starting with the finder maps, which you can access now at this link:
I've also added deep maps for Coma
For the links to work the constellation maps have to be in their own subfolder at the same level as the finder subfolder. I suggest you create a deepmaps folder, copy the Finder.zip and COM.zip to it, and unzip them, and likewise for any new constellations that you download.
How to use the charts
Open any of the finder charts in a PDF application that supports hyperlinks (e.g., Acrobat). I find that a free app called Documents works really well on the iPad. Here's an example finder map (this is just a screenshot: the actual maps are pdfs with vector graphics)
post-11492-0-81177200-1429630167_thumb.p
The constellations list is clickable to centre the finder chart on the selected constellation.
The list of objects shown on the left is just a selection. For instance, only M, NGC, IC and UGC galaxies are included, or only QSOs in certain catalogues. Where there are too many to display, I've arbitrarily cut down on the multiple stars listing, followed by other object categories with too many entries, removing the fainter objects first. For some objects (especially planetaries and the fainter open clusters) the magnitude information is approximate (I'll say more about this later).
To navigate to neighbouring finder charts, click in one of the 4 chart axis margins.
If a given finder chart contains deep charts, these appear numbered in light gray on the map, as in the example. Clicking on the number brings up the deep chart. For this to work you must have downloaded the deep maps for that constellation.
Clicking anywhere within the deep map takes you back to the parent finder chart. Note that since each deep map has only one parent, you might arrive back to a slightly different (neighbouring) finder chart. Likewise, clicking in the margins of a deep map takes you to its neighbour.
Let me know if you spot any problems or find them useful.
cheers
Martin
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Martin Meredith

Martin Meredith

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Here are links to ALL of the maps available in this release:

Finder charts: https://www.dropbox.com/s/okbky3rozl6q4df/Finder.zip?dl=0 (324 charts, 26M)

Bootes: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xij0l8ntp3dtexy/BOO.zip?dl=0 (153 charts, 101M)

Camelopardalis: https://www.dropbox.com/s/udzyzeof7spp7dd/CAM.zip?dl=0 (134 charts, 177M)

Canes Venatici: https://www.dropbox.com/s/16pl64lyp0ruzr8/CVN.zip?dl=0 (77 charts, 44M)

Coma Berenices: https://www.dropbox.com/s/gm58gaeumt5ujh3/COM.zip?dl=0 (63 charts, 33M)

Corona Borealis: https://www.dropbox.com/s/pbm7y8s265yocoe/CRB.zip?dl=0 (27 charts, 23M)

Corvus: https://www.dropbox.com/s/0umox964btnspmu/CRV.zip?dl=0 (33 charts, 23M)

Crater: https://www.dropbox.com/s/habe1al3cixixxo/CRT.zip?dl=0 (49 charts, 34M)

Draco: https://www.dropbox.com/s/y5sczwqczforro9/DRA.zip?dl=0 (186 charts, 188M)

(*) Hercules: https://www.dropbox.com/s/dmfcv2f9ixja5s0/HER.zip?dl=0 (206 charts, 347M)

Hydra: https://www.dropbox.com/s/tr6h7ctio8z85mj/HYA.zip?dl=0 (218 charts, 250M)

Leo: https://www.dropbox.com/s/cmqp7zzk18mjqoc/Leo.zip?dl=0 (155 charts, 92M)

Leo Minor: https://www.dropbox.com/s/zy9dgznqqoav259/LMI.zip?dl=0 (37 charts, 21M)

Libra: https://www.dropbox.com/s/9psxwqkfwmy7e2k/LIB.zip?dl=0 (87 charts, 92M)

Serpens Caput: https://www.dropbox.com/s/7uidgkd7e1y9prx/SER1.zip?dl=0 (72 charts, 64M)

Sextans: https://www.dropbox.com/s/h406etxxttlvj1w/SEX.zip?dl=0 (46 charts, 32M)

Ursa Major: https://www.dropbox.com/s/sdwd97h2a2973im/UMA.zip?dl=0 (208 charts, 133M)

Ursa Minor: https://www.dropbox.com/s/54lon865urf7nh8/UMI.zip?dl=0 (47 charts, 32M)

Virgo: https://www.dropbox.com/s/zaintpxy92ruuic/VIR.zip?dl=0 (198 charts, 133M)

(*) Some of the charts in hercules are quite sizeable. On the next release when I've resolved issues of charting Milky Way regions this particular set may well be reduced in size.

If for some reason you can't download then it might be that I've reached a daily download limit on Dropbox, so come back the following day… 

Martin

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webboid

webboid

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Martin
Thanks for these maps. You can download them direct or download them to dropbox as cloud storage. I just download & store on my PC. I have 50gb for free in my dropbox so aparker must have a lot stored there  :smiley:

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Maciek

Maciek

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Martin, thank you very much for these maps! Great! :)

I don't think you need to have a dropbox account to download the maps, do you?

I downloaded all maps anonymously (I do not have dropbox account).

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D4N

D4N

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I got it working now, apparently I was using the wrong "Documents" app, there are several on the App Store.

A really nice resource, thanks for making it :D

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

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  • 4 weeks later...
dph1nm

dph1nm

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Quick question - I have downloaded some examples to my linux box, but the fonts on the charts (e.g. RA/Dec/galaxy names) are unreadably small, even at 400% zoom (in acroread or xpdf). Is this a computer specific issue, or has anyone else found this?

thanks

NigelM

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Martin Meredith

Martin Meredith

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Hi Nigel

They're mainly in 1-point font (yes, really) as a design feature so they don't get in the way of seeing the overall picture. In practice you have to zoom right in (perhaps to 1600%). Using a tablet its just a two-finger 'reverse pinch' gesture; likewise on the Mac trackpad. If you're having to use a zoom button I can see it could be a pain, but I guess in future most will use them on a tablet device.

Martin

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  • 4 months later...
Martin Meredith

Martin Meredith

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The Hercules link was broken, so here is a new one:

Hercules

Let me take this opportunity to say that I'm working on the next release, which will include the autumn/winter constellations and a hyperlinked index that ought to allow most objects to be reached with a few clicks. With luck, it will be ready by the end of the month, other commitments notwithstanding...

Martin

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