Starry Night Backyard Special Edition 3.1

Other products by Imaginova

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 5 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000059WJ0
• Date first available at Amazon.com: January 29, 2001
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #6,365 in Software (See Bestsellers in Software)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #47 in	Software > Education & Reference > Science
  #54 in	Software > Children's Software > Science & Nature

• 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 Backyard, Special Edition is the perfect tool with which to explore your intergalactic interests. The application is packed full of information to delight the backyard stargazer, but is 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 Backyard can produce views from anywhere within 20,000 light-years of the solar system. Auto Identify helps you instantly identify the constellation you're viewing, while the Go There feature lets you travel to the planet, moon, or star of your choice.

Basic information about each star, planet, or galaxy is available within the program. This special edition also includes the Starry Night Companion, a 240-page guide to understanding the night sky using Starry Night.

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 Backyard, Special Edition 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
Starry Night Backyard Special Edition is identical to Starry Night Backyard, except for the inclusion of Starry Night Companion, a 240-page guide to understanding the night sky using Starry Night. Starry Night Companion was written by John Mosley, the director of the Griffith Observatory planetarium.

This software makes learning about the night sky accessible to your entire family. With a few simple steps, you can watch a sunset from the surface of Mars, hitch a ride on a comet, or learn about the stars and planets shining over your house. Or you can travel through time to marvel at night skies as seen from anywhere on Earth, from the distant past to the far future. It is suitable for both those who own a telescope and those who don't.

View 1 million stars along with 110 deep-space objects such as galaxies, star clusters, and nebulae, and navigate through space for otherworldly views of eclipses and other rare cosmic events. The auto-identify feature instantly shows you what constellation you're viewing. There are also QuickTime movies viewable on Web browsers.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

87 of 89 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Primary Tool for Amateur Astronomy, May 7, 2001

By A Customer

If you are interested in astronomy in any form, be it naked eye viewing, with binoculars, or telescope, or just interested in the subject, you will want this product...If you have no idea about celestial motion, constellations, planets, or Messier objects, this program will teach you these and more. This is a very professional product with excellent documentation, simple installation and an update capability that leads you by the hand to ensure you always have the latest version. It's your very own planetarium in your computer and under your own almost infinite control to travel around the universe. Great Fun!

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great program for beginners & casual users, February 10, 2002

By	Bob - that guy from No Where (The Middle of No Where) - See all my reviews

Starry Night offers an easy to use interface that can be used 'out of the box.' It looks great and runs great on a Radeon video card giving smooth realtime animation. The star and constellations are labeled, plus there are other navigation features that can be switched on/off. Different points of view show the movement of planets relative to each other and the star background, making it easy to find the planets and know what their position will be in the future. Also I recommend spending the extra $10 to get the book, it explains many of the basic concepts in an easy to read and understand format. Now if only it could just do something about those cloudy nights.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Starry Night, July 17, 2002

By	J. Lindner (Gem Lake, MN United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is an excellent way to learn astronomy and stargzing. I purchased the "Starter" edition then upgraded to "Backyard" though this is not really necessary to get value out of the purchase. Both editions come with a book that is so similar it is redundant, but there was no choice when upgrading online at the manufacturer's site.

Starry Night has many features that will help any level of astronomy student. Backyard allows one to travel further back and forward in time to understand the motion of the Universe. It also has more stars (supposedly one million, but who's counting).

The book(s) is(are) well written and reference the software so one can actually see what is being described. I hope other scientific books follow a similar path. The software is easy to use and lots of fun. My kids and I have spent much time looking at the features and will likely do so for years to come.