Best astronomy mapping software

Hi all!

I am looking for a good (freeware) program to make good prints of star
charts. These are the things I want at my print
- detailed stars: up to magnitude +10 and it should be clear on the print
which stars have which magnitude
- good deep-sky database, with the deep-sky objects shown at angular size
- straight declination and RA lines (for easy coordinate determining)
the program should have the ability to zoom in and show more or less
deep-sky objects

I used to use Starcalc, but the DEC and RA lines are not straight and the
star databases are not that good.

Does someone know such a program?

Thanks in advance for your help!
Pieter
--
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change NO.SPAM to pieter.tieghem to mail me
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"Pieter Tieghem" wrote in message
...
Hi all!

I am looking for a good (freeware) program to make good prints of star
charts. These are the things I want at my print
- detailed stars: up to magnitude +10 and it should be clear on the print
which stars have which magnitude
- good deep-sky database, with the deep-sky objects shown at angular size
- straight declination and RA lines (for easy coordinate determining)
the program should have the ability to zoom in and show more or less
deep-sky objects

I used to use Starcalc, but the DEC and RA lines are not straight and the
star databases are not that good.

Does someone know such a program?

Thanks in advance for your help!
Pieter
--
-------------
change NO.SPAM to pieter.tieghem to mail me
-------------


You would be hard pushed to do better than the freeware program Cartes du
Ciel
http://astrosurf.com/astropc/

dark skies
DS
Spudge

"Pieter Tieghem" wrote in message
...
Hi all!

I am looking for a good (freeware) program to make good prints of star
charts. These are the things I want at my print
- detailed stars: up to magnitude +10 and it should be clear on the print
which stars have which magnitude
- good deep-sky database, with the deep-sky objects shown at angular size
- straight declination and RA lines (for easy coordinate determining)
the program should have the ability to zoom in and show more or less
deep-sky objects

I used to use Starcalc, but the DEC and RA lines are not straight and the
star databases are not that good.

Does someone know such a program?

Thanks in advance for your help!
Pieter
--
-------------
change NO.SPAM to pieter.tieghem to mail me
-------------


You would be hard pushed to do better than the freeware program Cartes du
Ciel
http://astrosurf.com/astropc/

dark skies
DS
Spudge

Hi Pieter,
Good to hear from you! Hope all is well.

Best freewa Cartes du Ciel

--
-Stephen Paul

Best freewa Cartes du Ciel

Hi Stephen:

Yep, no doubt about it...and...it is VERY competitive with the commercial
offerings.

Peace,
Rod Mollise
Author of _Choosing and Using a Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope_
Like SCTs and MCTs?
Check-out sct-user, the mailing list for CAT fanciers!
Goto http://members.aol.com/RMOLLISE/index.html

excellent product! the best money you won't spend g

peace,
jon


"Rod Mollise" wrote in message
...

Best freewa Cartes du Ciel

Hi Stephen:

Yep, no doubt about it...and...it is VERY competitive with the commercial
offerings.

Peace,
Rod Mollise
Author of _Choosing and Using a Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope_
Like SCTs and MCTs?
Check-out sct-user, the mailing list for CAT fanciers!
Goto http://members.aol.com/RMOLLISE/index.html

The downside is that nobody is going to put in a great effort to create new
software when the competition is free. Look how development has slowed down
on TheSky. I would rather pay and get a great product.

Del Johnson



"Jax" wrote in message
...
excellent product! the best money you won't spend g

peace,
jon

Del Johnson wrote:
The downside is that nobody is going to put in a great effort to create new
software when the competition is free. Look how development has slowed down
on TheSky. I would rather pay and get a great product.

Are you sure the development has slowed down for that reason, and not
something else--such as that TheSky has matured sufficiently?

TheSky (Level IV, or whatever the highest level is) is sufficiently
expensive that I doubt that Cartes du Ciel is much competition. If
you are the sort that waited this long, and is only now downloading
CdC, I don't think you'd have bought TheSky, anyway. (Obviously, I
don't mean you personally, Del!)

I originally set up my $10 registration for PleiadAtlas for precisely
this reason--because I did not want to undercut other astronomy
software writers for the Palm. I never did it for the money; if I had,
I'd be sorely disappointed. If I had it all to do over again, I
probably would just make it freeware. I don't think that doing so
would affect Planetarium or 2Sky very much at all.

Brian Tung
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
The PleiadAtlas Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/
My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) at http://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.txt

Del Johnson wrote:
The downside is that nobody is going to put in a great effort to create new
software when the competition is free. Look how development has slowed down
on TheSky. I would rather pay and get a great product.

Are you sure the development has slowed down for that reason, and not
something else--such as that TheSky has matured sufficiently?

TheSky (Level IV, or whatever the highest level is) is sufficiently
expensive that I doubt that Cartes du Ciel is much competition. If
you are the sort that waited this long, and is only now downloading
CdC, I don't think you'd have bought TheSky, anyway. (Obviously, I
don't mean you personally, Del!)

I originally set up my $10 registration for PleiadAtlas for precisely
this reason--because I did not want to undercut other astronomy
software writers for the Palm. I never did it for the money; if I had,
I'd be sorely disappointed. If I had it all to do over again, I
probably would just make it freeware. I don't think that doing so
would affect Planetarium or 2Sky very much at all.

Brian Tung
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
The PleiadAtlas Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/
My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) at http://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.txt

The downside is that nobody is going to put in a great effort to create new
software when the competition is free.

Seems to me that there are other companies that haven't lost their drive,
Starry Night, Deepsky2003, Skymap.

Good freeware ought to provide some motivation for the commercial developers to
get their asses in gear and get moving.


When was the last major upgrade to the Sky?

jon