The three most popular products, all very mature in their development, are evaluated: Starry Night, TheSkyX and Voyager. Uses include introducing novice amateur astronomers to the sky, learning constellations, planning an observing session, and controlling the movement of a telescope via the Mac's USB port. Intergalactic one-click "Go-There" viewing.Virtual sky/planetarium astronomy programs can display the sky from most any location and time.Telescope controls, FOV indicators, equipment lists.Distance Spheres for any solar system body.
Apollo space missions & Nasa probes: trajectories of spacecraft, full models and guided tours.Object filtering based on magnitude, altitude above horizon, type, or database.Hour Angle Lines and Vernal Equinox Hour Angle Guide.Circumpolar regions, based on your latitude.Precessional paths of the celestial poles.Shadow cones show the shadows of orbiting bodies.100+ SkyGuide interactive multimedia tours.3D particle galaxies, comets, asteroids & spacecraft.Intercgalatic one-click "Go-There" viewing.Advanced altitude graphing and ephemerides generator.Add your own celestial objects, build your own star databases.Daily asteroid, comet & satellite updates.More than one million galaxies, clusters, deep-sky objects.Enhanced telescope controls, FOV indicators, equipment lists.
On that day, the comet was predicted to pass through perihelion, its closest approach to the Sun at an altitude of only 1,165,000 km (724,000 mi) above the Sun's surface. This was the only morning I observed it with my own eyes: īut the really scary thing for everyone was what might happen on November 28, Thanksgiving Day. On the morning of November 14, it suddenly increased several magnitudes in brightness, and we hoped it might be back on track. This was a reasonable prediction based on the orbital elements known at the time, but two events happened along the way.įirst of all, the comet did not brighten as quickly or as much as predicted, so we had to scale back its predicted brightness.