Aladin sky atlas

[mbrickley]

This free software is very good indeed for working out what you have got in your images. You can load one of your images in fits format and overlay one of a wide range of astro catalogs, such as the simbad database. You can then see and identify lots of faint galaxies and the like in your images that I bet you've missed. You do need to have plate solved your image so that the fits header has was coordinates.

I found 2 quasars and several mag 17 galaxies amongst other stuff on my first image.

Really good and really free! Plus it runs on mac and Linux as well as PC

Mark

[rwilkey]

Hi Mark, I am a visual astonomer and I find this software very good for homing in on galaxies etc, using it on the Windows 7 platform.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Here is the link http://aladin.u-strasbg.fr/

[mbrickley]

Hi Mark, I am a visual astonomer and I find this software very good for homing in on galaxies etc, using it on the Windows 7 platform.

Hi Robin

Nice to meet you. I also do some visual hunting but my eyesight is not great so ccd imaging is very good for me for the faint stuff!

[rwilkey]

Hi Robin

Nice to meet you. I also do some visual hunting but my eyesight is not great so ccd imaging is very good for me for the faint stuff!

No, my eyes aren't that brilliant either so the software helps me see better what I am supposed to be looking at.

[teleskopjo]

How can you set it to show DSS-2-Red catalog please?

[teleskopjo]

Any suggestions?

[RT65CB-SWL]

A bit late to the party on this thread, as it was started in 2014.

I discovered and downloaded version 4 of Aladin to my ageing iBook just over a month ago, and I must say it is... out of this world.  

I have downloaded a manual; (for version 6); and read it.