Deepsky 2003 Astronomy Software vs Starry Night

Deep Sky 2003 has something called a deep sky database which consist of dark
nebula and open clusters outside the ngc/ic catalogs. Many, many , many ,
many of those objects can be seen in humble binoculars. Starry Night sadly
has the absolute worse deepsky database out of all commercial mainstream
astronomical software. Also DeepSky 2003 planner is much better and it has
logging.
Don't get me wrong I love Starry Night, but it is an educator tool and
cloudy night entertainment. It is not suitable for the amateur as compared
to other lower cost software.

See a review I have done for Starry Night
http://www.knoxvilleobservers.org/be...snpreview1.htm

You should also check out SkyTools. It cost twice as much as DeepSky 2003
but it is 3 times better. See a review of it here
http://www.knoxvilleobservers.org/be...oolsreview.htm

I plan on doing a review on DeepSky 2003 as I own that as well.



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Shawn,

What about Desktop Universe? Tried it yet?

Todd

http://www.backyardastronomy.com
http://www.skynewsmagazine.com
http://www.simpleastrophotography.com

What about Desktop Universe? Tried it yet?

No I have not tried it. From what I see on its web site it is regular
ordinary hum drum charting software that adds ccd images of the whole sky.
CCD images of the whole sky is nice and took a lot of work but how do they
help the visual observer or ccd imager? For me I don't like to look at
pictures of objects I am going to observe or have observed because they have
much more detail that can lead to confusion. One thing Desktop universe does
I like is outlines for dark nebula.

With enough computing power I can get Guide or Skytools display all dss over
the whole sky for a third of the cost of Desktop Universe. In short I don't
want to pay $300 for a program that just has charting over a background of
ccd images as its main advantage. I still have to have either Guide or
Skytools to pick up the slack in features Desktop Universe doesn't have.



x-- 100 Proof News - http://www.100ProofNews.com
x-- 3,500+ Binary NewsGroups, and over 90,000 other groups
x-- Access to over 800 Gigs/Day - $8.95/Month
x-- UNLIMITED DOWNLOAD

Deep Sky 2003 has something called a deep sky database which consist of dark
nebula and open clusters outside the ngc/ic catalogs. Many, many , many ,
many of those objects can be seen in humble binoculars. Starry Night sadly
has the absolute worse deepsky database out of all commercial mainstream
astronomical software. Also DeepSky 2003 planner is much better and it has
logging.
Don't get me wrong I love Starry Night, but it is an educator tool and
cloudy night entertainment. It is not suitable for the amateur as compared
to other lower cost software.


Hi:

For ONCE you can take what Shawn is saying to the bank. He's 100% on target
about this.

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

For ONCE you can take what Shawn is saying to the bank. He's 100% on
target
about this.

For once? Come on Rod you can always take what I say to the bank.



x-- 100 Proof News - http://www.100ProofNews.com
x-- 3,500+ Binary NewsGroups, and over 90,000 other groups
x-- Access to over 800 Gigs/Day - $8.95/Month
x-- UNLIMITED DOWNLOAD

For once? Come on Rod you can always take what I say to the bank.

HI Shawn:

Yeah, but the next thing you hear is, "ALRIGHT IN THERE...COME OUT WITH YOUR
HANDS UP!!" :-)

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