Imaginova Starry Night Pro Plus 6 (PC/Mac)

• Platform:    Windows XP, Mac OS X
• Media: CD-ROM
• Item Quantity: 1

View on your computer screen an image better than the best-trained human eye can capture in real-time viewing through a telescope on a "good seeing" night. See the entire Milky Way in exquisite detail and then zoom in to explore dust lanes and nebulae. Instead of dots and circles, you will see an actual photo of a star or a deep sky object.

Smoothly and swiftly navigate this full color photograph of the entire night sky, to a limiting magnitude of 14-15. Five years in development, the AllSky CCD mosaic is comprised of about 20,000 individual images, originally imaged at a resolution of 12 arcseconds per pixel with a scientific grade, custom built AP9E CCD camera.

The AllSky image in Starry Night presents the ENTIRE sky as a full-color, seamless mosaic at 5 resolution levels depending on your zoom setting. This consistent resolution, color and depth of coverage eliminates the uncertainties of comparing images from many and varied sources. Zoom from the widest possible view of 180 degrees to 0.5 degree field of view.

If you have the processing power, set the AllSky image to be more precise and a better match between the photographic stars in the AllSky image and the Starry Night stars. For the highest quality AllSky image, you will need a video card with a minimum of 96 MB VRAM.

Version 6 includes an additional 6 GB of the AllSky image in DDS texture format, which enables the AllSky image to load up to 20X faster.

In addition, at wide fields of view, the AllSky image can be rendered via shaders for perfect rendering accuracy and a dramatic speed improvement, but you will need a higher-end OpenGL 2.0 capable graphics card to see this phenomenal improvement. We recommend 128 MB nVidia GeForce 6600 (or higher) or ATI Radeon X800 (or higher).

In all, Starry Night Pro Plus version 6 has over 25 new features that bring more power and control to your observing and imaging. Starry Night Pro Plus will change how you look at the night sky.

New Features:

• Plan observing sessions with Event Finder that instantly displays celestial events, such as lunar and solar eclipses and conjunctions, for months far into the future
• Create Observing Lists of astronomical objects using a variety of filters such as magnitude, altitude above horizon, type or database. Quickly see what objects you have observed and which ones you still need to hunt down
• Find targets effortlessly with three-view starhopping charts customized to your equipment
• Select your equipment from expanded default database of over 300 Orion, Meade, Celestron and Vixen scopes, binoculars, SBIG, Apogee, FLI and Starlight Express CCD chips and more
• Recognise 1000+ craters, valleys and more instantly with surface feature outlines for the Moon
• View the locations of 160+ extrasolar planets
• Enjoy 8 additional photorealistic Earth horizon panoramas

• Take advantage of improved Digital Settings Circles Support for non-motorized telescopes such as Orion SkyQuest IntelliScope, NGCMAX, Lumicon Sky Vector, Discovery Digital Star Finder, Orion SkyWizard III, and Celestron Advanced Astromaster
• Control your robotic telescope focuser with Computer Controlled Focuser Support (Windows only). Supported models include AstroOptik telescopes, Astrophysics GTO mount, Finger Lakes focusers, Gemini equipped mount, JMI Smart Focus, Meade LX200 and Autostar, Optec TCF-S, and PCFocus.
• Smoothly track and follow satellites with the Meade LX200 GPS telescope (Mac only)

Other Features:

• Controls most popular brands of robotic telescopes, including Orion SkyQuest Intelliscope, Meade LX200 and Autostar, Celestron Nexstar series and all ASCOM compliant scopes (additional cable required)
• Explore 65,000,000 stars
• Access 500+ million stars online
• Explore PGC Catalog of 980,000 galaxies
• Choose from over 30 photorealistic horizon panoramas
• Add custom field of view indicators to match your telescope eyepiece, binoculars, CCDs or DSLRs
• And all the data and features of Starry Night Pro version 6

Starry Night Pro Plus version 6 includes:

• 2 DVD-ROMs of Starry Night software for Windows and Macintosh
• Exclusive SkyTheater DVD with over an hour or original movies about space
• Starry Night Companion, a 192-page illustrated astronomy book
• New, comprehensive 210-page User's Guide
• Basic support for joysticks recognised by Windows XP and Mac OS X.

Requirements for Video DVD: Home DVD player and TV, or computer with DVD player.

Box Contents

• Software > Education & Reference > Reference > Astronomy & Space
• Software > Hobbies & Pastimes > Astronomy & Space
• Software > Hobbies & Pastimes > Special Interest