best astronomy software

[rowan46]

having recently missed out on a cheap copy of starry night I was wondering what the best astronomy software was,

[skye at night]

starry night if paying...

Cartes Du Ciel or Stellarium if wanting a free (good but limited) download.

Steve

[MikeP]

I have Starry Night Pro Plus .... sitting in its box. Nothing wrong with the software but it would not run on the laptop that I take outside.

It is not everyone's favourite but I use SkyMap Pro - simple, lightweight and has all the facilities that I need.

Having said that, the two free ones that Steve suggested are excellent.

Mike

[BlueAstra]

That wouldn't be Vista would it?

[MikeP]

You be right to think it was Vista but no it is actually XP Pro.

The problem is with the graphics somewhere. No matter what I tried, I could not get it to run in other than some sort of compatibility mode. It is quite an old laptop now.

Mike

[daz]

SNP is really quite resource hungry.

SkyMap and TheSky much less so.

But for free, Stellarium is very good. Never used CdC, but I know many people swear by it!

[themos]

This is a not very much discussed option:

MegaStar5 Computer Sky Atlas, The Universe at Your Command

[Ant]

That might be a screen resolution issue. SN will only run on certain resolutions...

SN is resource hungry, but talking to Steve at Kelling he mentioned that you can turn the screen refresh rate down... I've looked for the setting and cannot find it - I'll send him a PM and ask...

Ant

You be right to think it was Vista but no it is actually XP Pro.

The problem is with the graphics somewhere. No matter what I tried, I could not get it to run in other than some sort of compatibility mode. It is quite an old laptop now.

Mike

[vinny]

for ease of use stellarium is hard to beat

[daz]

File -> Preferences -> Responsiveness

[daz]

Actually, you can turn a lot of the GUI off to make it run a bit better. The side menu is still slow though...

[lunator]

I am one of those guys who swear by Cartes Du Ciel.

I use the newer version 3 as it is nicer to look at.

For free software it is excellent.

[crovax]

I am very surprised with your SNP issues. I have ASUS EEE 900 which has quite weak specs and a weird screen resolution. No problems so far. Except that some big sized info doesn't fit into the tiny display and gets cut off.

[david o]

StarCalc is another relatively unknown one - found only a few mentions on the forum with a search. Been using it for about four years, from well before I got my first scope.

It's freeware for Win 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP, don't know if it will work under Vista/Win7. Has a small memory footprint and won't hog your processor.

Looks a bit dated, but works fine for me under XP and has all the functionality that I need as a newbie. Though I'm not sure if it has all the bells 'n' whistles an experienced stargazer would want. However, the "latest" version does boast ASCOM telescope control.

[Sunwind]

I am one of those guys who swear by Cartes Du Ciel.

I use the newer version 3 as it is nicer to look at.

For free software it is excellent.

where can I get this newer version 3? can't find it on the website, and all the files up there seem really old (years) and hasn't been updated for a long time

[Deneb]

If its free you want, you can't beat Stellarium or Cartes Du Ciel. If you want to purchase try to go for Something like TheSky or TheSkyX Serious Astronomers Edition, they are less bloatware, you can create your own FOV indicators which is really handy when planning to observe/image certain areas of the sky. Sorry I cannot comment on the Skymap Pro as I do not have it.

[Talitha]

Sky Tools 3 is an excellent resource, but it costs.

You get what you pay for though, IMHO.

[narrowbandpaul]

i use CDC it really is good. You can download a lot of catalogues...

If I were paying it would be TheSky

The uni have Staryy Night Pro Plus 6 or whatever. Way too fancy, what with the CCD images. Not required, just a way for them to charge more. It doesnt improve your imaging/observing. It takes a mega machine to run it too.

Paul

[kniclander]

I like CduC cos you can print off star maps to any scale you want and showing stars down to whatever mag you want. For starhopping it is invaluable.

[barkis]

There was an issue with a certain version of Quicktime with Starry Night I believe, which caused problems. I don't remember which one though.

Ron.

[AstroNerd]

I'm a noob to all this and recently got myself and tried the main ones mentioned above.

I use SN5 at the moment as I think its more geared towards beginners, it looks nice, easy to navigate with a nice search and planning function, where as the The Sky6 has a lot more to offer if you know what your doing and can delve deep enough.

In my opinion CduC is hard to get to grips with for a newbie but with updatable charts and it not needing much power it's something I want to use at some point.

Stellarium looks nice and it's free, it does what it's suppose to do without the bells and whistles. Oddly enough though this slows my laptop down more than SN5!

If you have the patience and don't mind the learning curve CduC is the best bet.

I also use Astroplanner and Whats Up to plan, the later being my outright favourite astronomy app.