Saturday

July 19, 2008 #002 - Astro Mapping Software

I have always been a peruser of Sky Maps. Like many others over the years, I purchased Norton's Star Atlas and a couple of versions of Skalnaté Pleso. From these I made plastic covered copies to use at the telescope. Later I entered the electronic era. My first computer was an Amiga 500 then a 1200. During that period I discovered a great sky atlas called First Light. Over time the Amiga dropped off the ends of the earth and Windows moved in. I ran various programs in search of a good atlas. I found that good equals expensive. Recently I found an excellent Deep Sky Mapping program that is free! This does everything the commercial programs do and more. The author has done a wonderful job and has given us a jewel as a gift. The program is CNebulaX by J.R. Torres. Also check out Tri Atlas, extensive sky maps in PDF and postscript, which print out for telescopic use, on the website.

http://www.uv.es/jrtorres/

Clear Sky - Rich

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