Customer Reviews

Starry Night Enthusiast 5.0 Astronomy Software (Win/Mac)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Okay, the discs that came with the box delivered would not install. Getting a hold of Tech Support required scouting for the 416 number in Canada and leaving a voice mail message - not the best first impression. I did receive a return call about 4 hours later from Claire at Starry Night Tech Support. She said this was a known manufacturing problem affecting a small batch of product that went out, and she promised to send me a replacement set once I provided proof of purchase (a copy of Amazon's confirmation e-mail sufficed).

Now that I have the program installed, I am quite pleased. It's graphics are stunning especially compared to my old DOS version of Skyglobe.

The Local View, which I use most frequently, has options to turn on or off Daylight, Local Horizon, Local and Distant Light Pollution. Of these, the 1st 2 provide dramatic differences in the realistic view of the sky. The latter two don't really impress.

Solar System objects are selectable too - Asteroids, Comets, Meteor showers, Planets and Satellites can all be turned on or off as are their labels.

Constellation Options include Auto Identify, Boundaries, Illustrations (artsy, but superfluous in my view), Labels and Stick Figures. The last of these offers five flavours, so most of you can find constellation stick figures to suit your taste.

I found the Astronomical View a tad complex while the Asterisms were a tad over simplified compared to what I grew up with (again - Skyglobe). Also available are Oriental Moon Stations, Reyís and Zodiac.

Deep Spave Objects can be selected (and labeled). Drill deeper into space and you will see nice images of distant galaxies etc.

The printouts are also fairly nice. Don't expect a mirror image of the realistic view as displayed on the monitor. You get a nice star chart with what ever labels you selected in your Options.

A really fun feature is the "Spaceship" option if you wish to take a little cruise around the local solar system, or zip off to distant galaxies. I would like to be able to turn off the onscreen targeting window (for lack of better term or inclination to look the term up). But a nice feature none the less.

I don't use a telescope, so I can't comment on features geared towards amateur astronomers, but as a night sky enthusiast, I'm more that satisfied with Starry Night.

I had to delete the initial rating on this item because I didn't want a 1 star rating to remain in effect that was based solely on my displeasure over a non-installable set of discs. Had it worked straight out of the box, I would have given this product a 5 star rating.

I was an astronomy enthusiast without any tools, until now. This is a great program, runs smoothly, and is as fun and educational as everyone raves. With 700 million light years of space to explore, the point and click option makes any visit possible. I have not made any successful landings with the spaceship mode; that takes a little practice, but I have successfully collided with many deep space objects which has made my flying attempts rewarding all the same. So, I would recommend this program with great enthusiasm. May you have Clear Skies (An astronomer's blessing)

don't buy this yet. it's harder than heck to install--still trying to get it installed after 3 shots with everything else turned off-- and it has lots of foreign locations for you to designate your home location, but not much good for cities over 100,000 in the US. Want to install in Russia or Kazaksta or Ghana or Egypt or Peru (Talara Peru for example) or Argentina, go right ahead. But, for example, no locations in Indiana US such as Gary, Fort Wayne, South Bend, Terre Haute, Evansville, so they've left out a lot of people, but you can install in Evora in Portugal and Horsens in Denmark (nothing personal, I just wonder how may purchasers there may be in Evora (55,000) or Horsens (55,000), versus Fort Wayne (220,000)or South Bend (110,000+ 50,000 in next city) or Evansville (120,000). Also, registration of the product is difficult. So US purchasers, be aware that this is not necessarily US-friendly and it is not easy to install, as the US locations seem to be picked sort of at random. I had hoped for better understanding of their likely customer base. Maybe they are looking up into the skies instead of at who might likely buy their stuff. I have purchased earlier versions of this software and was hoping for an improvement.

I don't want to misrepresent as it is a very nice astronomy program. But, I was to understand that it could be dialed back to show the sky at various points in time and it can, just not as far as I was hoping it would.

I used Starry Night Backyard for years and decided to "upgrade" to Enthusiast. What a mistake! The upgrade has several "improvements" that make it difficult to use. As usual, as with most products, some software programmer has to tinker with the user interface without knowing what he is doing and ends up ruining it.

I won't list all the annoyances except to mention the biggest. When you set a date to view and then open the calendar, instead of opening the calendar to the date you are viewing (as Backyard does), it opens to the current date. For example, I might be viewing a date five years in the future and open the calendar. To get to that date, I have to click and click, and click and ..., on the forward button until I reach the date in the calendar. Lord help you if you are viewing a sky a hundred or two hundred years in the future or past. A call to tech services resulted in a hohum, " ...that's the way it works and maybe we'll look at changing it" (fat chance!).

I uninstalled this program and went back to Starry Night Backyard. I'm hesistant about buying their more expensive programs because there is a good chance they all have the same or worse interfaces.

My advice, search the internet and see if you can find a good inexpensive used version of Starry Night Backyard and stay away from this mess. This product is not worth the cost!

Like the previous reviewer, my discs have just failed to install. Haven't the manufacturer's heard of product recalls? There should have been no faulty products remaining on retailers' shelves this Christmas, given that this is a known problem.