January 04, 2012 #128 - Cartes du Ciel

I was checking for updates to my astronomy programs and found that my old standby Cartes du Ciel has been improved. Patrick Chevalley has issued version 3.5-svn1986M.

If you will check the site there is also a link to download recent data for use with this program having stars and info anywhere down to 20th. magnitude. This is still a free program! As I have said before it is astounding the amount of time and work that these great programers will undertake for the love of astronomy. Thank you Patrick and friends.

http://www.ap-i.net/skychart/start

Clear Sky - Rich

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