Stellarium upgrade

[Tweedledee]

Check out Stellarium 18.2, the PC version!

They've done a great job on this, and it's still free! Just click a button and a full screen dss colour image of the sky integrates with the screen. Can be a tad slow on zooming into the screen image if you're on an older computer, like me, but it's definitely worth a couple of seconds wait. Or just click the dss off, zoom-in and then click the dss on again.

It may not give a full web style write up on the objects like SkySafari Pro 6 does, but a comprehensive list of all the relevant object info is there. All the deep sky catalogues are in there including the more obscure ones. Over one million DSO's included and over 177 million stars if you download the extra catalogues down to mag 18.

Quite amazing for a free program. ?

[Sheila]

OK downloaded, what button do i click to see dss images?  cant seem to see one?

 

[Tweedledee]

17 minutes ago, Sheila said:

OK downloaded, what button do i click to see dss images?  cant seem to see one?

 

Press F2 (or the spanner on left edge of screen pop up menu), which brings up the configuration menu.

Click Extras and put a tick in the box next to "Show DSS Button".

The DSS button will then appear in the bottom edge pop up menu.

 

You will find lots of stuff and extra buttons you can configure.

 

Download all the star catalogues down to mag 18.

 

Once you have it fully set up, it becomes a seriously good program.

Edited October 6, 2018 by Tweedledee

[Sheila]

OK will give it a go, pretty much a luddite me, how do you zoom in on stellarium, what keys?

[Tweedledee]

2 minutes ago, Sheila said:

OK will give it a go, pretty much a luddite me, how do you zoom in on stellarium, what keys?

PgUp and PgDn

[Sheila]

on mine that moves the screen, but just found a list of shortcuts,  unusual for me to find anything.  It says use / and \, that seem to work

ok.  Must read the instructions I expect  ? 

 

 

Thanks  

[Tweedledee]

Just now, Sheila said:

on mine that moves the screen, but just found a list of shortcuts,  unusual for me to find anything.  It says use / and \, that seem to work

ok.  Must read the instructions I expect  ? 

 

 

Thanks  

That might change depending if you have Num Lock set.

 

Also...

Press F4 click the Sky tab and untick "Atmospheric visualization". If it is ticked (default) then the program simulates your local light pollution (which can be adjusted). But you won't see many stars. If it is off, you'll see pretty much all the stars you get in your images.

[Tweedledee]

There are a lot of short cut keys in that list. I never remember most of them and usually resort to the menu systems so I can see exactly what I'm changing or setting up.

[Sheila]

Will start to try and use it and get the most out of it

[Tweedledee]

12 hours ago, Sheila said:

Will start to try and use it and get the most out of it

I use it all the time, but still keep finding new features. I think it does everything you could want in a program, and just when I think, "I wish it could do this", I delve a bit deeper into the settings and find it already does it. Just got to find and learn how to use all the features. ?