Starry Night Pro

by Imaginova

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 5 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000053U78
• Date first available at Amazon.com: January 29, 2001
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,501 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
  • #48 in Software > Education & Reference > Secondary Education > Science
  • #76 in Software > Education & Reference > Science
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

If looking up at the sky on a clear night has always held more than a bit of curious fascination for you, Starry Night Pro is the perfect tool for you to explore your intergalactic interests. The application is packed full of information to delight the backyard stargazer, while being powerful enough for the serious student.

View the stars from your exact location on Earth (or any other location on the planet), or travel throughout the solar system to see views not possible until now. If that's still too close to home, Starry Night can produce views from anywhere within 20,000 light-years of the solar system. With a database of over 19 million celestial objects, there is almost no limit to where you can travel. View satellites, asteroids, and comets, or continuously track their paths in orbit.

Basic information about each star, planet, or galaxy is available within the program. If you desire more in-depth reading, Starry Night Pro will link you directly to the Internet for more detailed information.

The software can also be customized to the individual tastes of each user, with the ability to add labels, guides, and constellations, as well as create your own personal settings. Keep it current by adding your own database of newly discovered celestial objects. You can even throw in customized images and Internet links.

Curious about the way the universe looked in the past or how it will look in the future? This software allows you to travel through 200,000 years of time in a matter of minutes. You can also create QuickTime movies of your adventures and send them to friends.

With almost too many features to mention, Starry Night Pro is an amazing tool for anyone with a fascination for space. It's as close as you will probably ever get to owning your own planetarium. --Joshua Craig

Amazon.com Product Description

This CD is a visually appealing guide to the planets, stars, constellations, and over 70,000 galaxies. Starry Night Pro comes with stellar databases, movable horizons, Internet updates, and a 240-page guidebook, Starry Night Companion, by John Mosley.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Reviewing Starry Night Pro 3.1 for Windows, June 5, 2001

By 

Sean Pratz (Space-Guy.com) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Starry Night Pro (CD-ROM)

Starry Night Pro meets almost all of my "perfect program" requirements. The learning curve, while not steep, isn't eased very much by the program's documentation. It is certainly usable right out of the box, but the deeper features take a bit of poking around to find. This is one of those programs that you'll want to keep the manual nearby when using, at least for the more esoteric functions.

However, the manual appears to have been rushed to press. (... acquired Sienna Software in May, 2000, and it's possible that the usual confusion which follows such acquisitions is to blame.) There are quite a few inaccuracies in my copy, the first of which I noticed when registering the program. Being told to look for the registration number at the front of the manual was confusing until I figured out that whoever wrote this was using an eyepiece which reversed east and west. The number is actually in the back.

There are a lot of frustrating little things like that in the manual. and there are no help files included with SNP. Clicking on help brings you to a FAQ on the Starry Night website. This is a Bad Thing. If I'm using SNP to guide a telescope from the back yard I shouldn't need to string a phone cable outside to the laptop when I need help with the program.

The online FAQ itself is okay, but it often refers you back to obscure text files located on the SNP CD-ROM itself rather than directly answering your question. To understand every feature of SNP you'll need several things - The manual, access to a modem so you can read the online FAQ and a subscription to the SNP support group at ..., where you can browse through the archives. To be fair, the support through ... is excellent and very prompt. The Starry Night support guy that hangs out there does a great job. But a mailing list shouldn't be something you need in order to fully understand a program. Starry Night Pro needs a comprehensive built-in help system.

Ephemeris and "event" data can't be exported, and there is no built-in observation log. (Honestly, these functions might be included but so well hidden that I can't find them. There's that help-file problem again...)

Overall, though, these complaints don't change the fact that SNP is a joy to use. Now that I've pointed out the few things I don't like about SNP, let's get to the good stuff.

First of all, Starry Night Pro is a jaw-droppingly beautiful program! My reservations about beauty vs. function don't apply here. SNP didn't sacrifice accuracy to become an attractive program, it's attractiveness is a wonderful bonus.

Zooming in on a random Messier object brings up a stunning photograph, blended well enough with the surrounding stars that it's hard to tell where the photo ends and the program-generated stars begin. Zooming more than 30 arc-minutes into any area of the sky allows you to bring up the corresponding plate from the Digitized Sky Survey via an internet connection. Occasionally you'll run into an error message on the DSS website, but that's the internet's problem, not SNP's. Trying again a few minutes later usually fixes things. You can also add your own photos to the program if you like.

Image maps for each of the planets and the major moons are included, so when you zoom in on Mars you'll see more than the typical wire-frame globe you usually get with other programs. These image maps can be replaced with your own if you're so inclined.

The database included on the CD-ROM includes 19 million stars, the Hipparcos star database, all the Messier objects and more. It is possible to display all the stars above the horizon on screen, even ones visible only to giant telescopes, but you'll probably only do it once. Displaying ten million stars at once is quite pretty, but it's a painfully slow process, and the sky doesn't really look that way to our eyes, anyway.

Easy-to-use database plugins are available at the SNP website as well. These databases include variable and double stars, meteor shower radiants, members of the Local Group of galaxies and many more. It's also possible to create your own databases if you're so inclined.

Satellite-watchers will be happy to know that SNP fully supports their addiction. Updating the satellite files takes only a few mouse-clicks, so if you want to watch the ISS as it passes overhead, SNP will help you find it. Comet and asteroid watchers enjoy the same benefits, with frequently updated orbital data just a few mouse-clicks away. You can also set the program to download the updates automatically. Finally, you can add your own objects manually, defining everything from orbital elements to appearance.

SNP's printed charts are highly accurate and useful, and show as little or as much detail as you need.

Being able to set your point of view somewhere other than on Earth makes illustrating difficult concepts easier. Because of this, Starry Night can be used as much as an educational tool as an observing aid. And it looks good enough to be engaging even to kids weaned on Playstation games. You can even save time-sequenced images as Apple Quicktime movies.

Clicking on any star will pop up a window displaying its various catalog numbers, size, temperature, luminosity, magnitude, and a plethora of other information. Similar information is just as easy to get to no matter what you click on.

I wouldn't hesitate to recommend SNP to anyone interested in astronomy. Advanced amateurs and even professionals will find plenty to like, and beginners will find themselves glued to the computer while trying out different points of view and identifying various stars and constellations. This is the sort of program that can spark interest in someone who normally might not care about astronomy. Other programs may be as accurate, but SNP's output is far more "exciting" to look at from a non-astronomer's point of view.

Starry Night Pro won't replace my beloved SkyMap program, but it complements it beautifully and has earned a permanent place alongside it on my hard drive. And if I want to fire up a program to quickly illustrate a point, SNP is the one I'll reach for.

43 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A bargain at twice the price..., December 11, 2001

By 

John Rummel (Madison, WI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Starry Night Pro (CD-ROM)

Teaching astronomical concepts in the classroom has always been tricky. For this reason, astronomy education has suffered in many middle and high school curricula. The advent of the desktop computer has changed this situation dramatically. Now, using any PC, students and teachers can simulate the appearance of the night sky, and demonstrate concepts and effects that are almost impossible to visualize.

There are dozens of such programs, available for Windows PCs and Macs. They differ chiefly in three ways: 1) ease of use, 2) available features, and 3) ability to realistically portray the sky.

Starry Night Pro distinguishes itself primarily in categories 1 and 3, though it's no slouch in features. As a planetarium program, Starry Night Pro can display a beautifully drawn daytime or nighttime sky, with accurately portrayed celestial objects, both in position and appearance. With easy-to-use and intuitive VCR-like controls, you can put the sky in motion and simulate sunsets, daily motion, watch an eclipse, or simulate just about any event you can imagine. One of my favorite features, new to version 3 of SNP, is the ability to simulate the same event in two different windows on screen. For instance, simulate the June 21, 2001 eclipse from on the ground in Africa, and simultaneously watch it from outer space, and watch the moon's shadow creep across the continent.

Other demonstrations, solstice and equinox conditions, illustrations of daily and annual motion of the skies, retrograde motions of the planets, phases of the moon-and many more -- are easy to set up and can be saved as documents for quick future reference.

SNP also enables you to set your viewing location to any location on the Earth, or anywhere in the solar system, whether on a planet (or moon, or asteroid, or comet, etc.), or simply floating in space watching the universe go by. Visualizing the hyperbolic path of a comet is easy when you can sit a few million miles from the sun and watch it zoom in from the depths of space, flit though the inner solar system, and depart for the outer limits again.

Constellations can be toggled on or off (using either standard astronomical patterns, illustrated figures, boundries, or any combination of the three). SNP makes it easy to learn the constellations or simply answer the question 'what's up tonight,' or 'what was that really bright star low in the east yesterday morning?' Students can also investigate historical questions such as; did the Medes and Lydians really witness a total solar eclipse in 584 BC and put down their weapons? What celestial event might have heralded the birth of Christ?

One of the features I like best about SNP is the seamless connection to an internet resource called the Digitized Sky Survey. The DSS is an image database of the entire sky as photographed from Mt. Palomar back in the 1950's and 60's. These images have been available for years, but you needed to navigate a cumbersome form to specify what patch of sky or what image you wanted to download. With Starry Night Pro, you can zoom in on any object or area of the sky you choose, select DSS from a menu, and SNP automatically launches your web browser, goes to the DSS web site, and displays the appropriate image, at exactly the size and zoom level you had specified. The experience is akin to having a powerful telescope attached to your computer withthe ability to call up images at will.

SNP comes with a well-written and thorough user's guide and an excellent companion book written by John Mosely, professional astronomer and longtime astronomy educator. Mosely's book provides a series of wonderful exercises to guide you or your students through such concepts as the motions of the Earth, precession, the motions of the moon, or celestial coordinate systems.

Starry Night comes in three different flavors, Beginner, Backyard, and Pro. There is also a free downloadable demo available on their web site. The demo is fully functional for 15 days, giving teachers or students plenty of time to explore the features available. I would recommend at least the Backyard edition for teachers, but the Pro version is the best value. Visit the Starry Night web site and check out their comparision chart.

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect Astronomy tool, April 17, 2001

By 

Tim (Hartland, WI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Starry Night Pro (CD-ROM)

After buying Starry night Backyard i decided to move up to SN Pro. The difference was amazing. If you own a telescope you have to buy this product. There are nearly 20 million stars so you see everything exactly as you would through your telescope. Another nice feature is the eyepiece view. You can actually program your telescope and eyepieces field of view into the SN Pro so what see on the computer is even more exact to that of your telescope. Overall there isn't much better than this for a computer planetarium.