SkyTools 4 Pro Atlas is Remarkable

[EmeraldHillsSkies]

In my electronically-assisted astronomy (EAA) session last night, I was *amazed* at the detail in SkyTools 4 Pro's Atlas. I was trying to see if I could see the galaxy cluster labeled ACO 2065 in SkyTools. This galaxy cluster is known as Abell 2065, but often listed (not just in SkyTools) with the "ACO" designation so it won't be confused with the Abell Catalog of Planetary Nebulae. (I was curious as to why we use "ACO" for the galaxy cluster catalog listing and found that ACO is an acronym referring to the *three* authors of that catalog, George Abell, H. Corwin, and R. P. Orowin.) Make no mistake - these are difficult targets. In Harrington's Cosmic Challenge, Harrington maintains that this target is extremely difficult in an 18-inch scope. In fact, as the author of the book, he's honest about the fact that he rarely can detect these galaxies through his own 18-inch. (Part of the reason is - the galaxy cluster is 1 billion light years away.) But the stunningly beautiful charts built into SkyTools serve patient observers amazingly well. Here's a screenshot of the moment I found the galaxy known as MCG 5-36-18 (also known as PGC 54868).



The left window of the screenshot above is the "live" view through my RASA 11. I believe my cursor might just be pointing directly at MCG 5-36-18 (PGC 54868). The *right* window, obviously, is the Atlas from SkyTools. There's a lot of information there. But it REALLY helped. 

In contrast, for what it's worth, please allow me to insert below a screenshot of Stellarium's view of the area:



If you're confused by the screenshot above, it's no wonder. Essentially, Stellarium just provides a placeholder for ACO2065 -- and this is in spite of the fact that I have loaded into Stellarium every last catalog that is possibly available. Note the message at the bottom of this dialogue box in Stellarium attesting to the fact that "all star catalogs have been installed:"



So whereas SkyTools has an *enormous* amount of sky data about *each* *individual* *star* (let alone the galaxies and galaxy cluster), Stellarium shows *dead* *black* *empty* *space*.

Blank space.

This is Version 23.4 of Stellarium. It's the very latest version:



Now that I've experienced SkyTools  - with an 11-inch RASA telescope -- I can't *imagine* using Stellarium as my primary atlas ever again. I'd be missing so much!

Of course, now I'm all-the-more eager for Greg to release the EAA version of SkyTools - because SkyTools was bound and determine to tell me that it was impossible for my RASA 11 to *detect* these galaxies -- which is one of the many reasons why I'm relying on EAA instead of an eyepiece.

If you'd like to see my painstakingly (and I'm sure, *annoying*) search to get oriented in this part of the sky hahahaha, check out the live stream below. I've taken the liberty of cueing it up to the moment I start working with the Atlas to try to find these galaxies (which are, by the way, Magnitude 17 and 18 -- and a mere 1 BILLION Light Years distant... and are only pinpoints at that distance). (Again, apologies for the fact that I'm still very new at using SkyTools. But even in the hands of a downright newbie, it's still incredibly helpful.)

https://www.youtube.com/live/o6urHY1f7rE...s08&t=5736

So - if you're listening Greg, thank you for your work. I'm not sure if you will hear the part of the video in which one of the viewers of the live stream chimes in, "Oh yes...  SkyTools was developed by a professional astronomer. That's why it has all this information." : )

(But also, if you're listening, please keep this kind of astronomy in mind for the EAA version and please remove all of the suggested limitations on my scope. With EAA, many of those limitations just don't seem to apply any more. Please let us see the entire list of targets, regardless of what SkyTools thinks we *ought* to be able to detect, and let the *scope* decide which ones it can see - please. Thank you brother!!!)

I'm "all in" on SkyTools.

Doug

[theskyhound]

Hi Doug,

I really appreciate your enthusiasm! It often seems that the only feedback I get is when something goes wrong.

I've never seen red on white before. What's going on there? The purpose of night vision is to protect your night vision by producing as little light as possible on the screen, so that white background really leaves me puzzled. Also, the night vision in SkyTools is designed to work with a red screen over the monitor. But since you are doing EAA, why does it even matter? Why not just use it in a normal display mode? No criticism meant here-I just want to understand what I'm seeing.

I'd love to do some sort of object identification using your image stack, but I haven't quite figured out how that would actually work. I do have some ideas.

[EmeraldHillsSkies]

Hi Greg. You're nice to encourage - but the truth is, it's all sincere.
Also, you know from my other messages that I'm drop-dead honest. If I don't understand how something works or why it's a certain way, you know I'll ask. And so I hope you have equal trust in the fact that this stuff really is this good. it's super-helpful, especially on these more exotic targets that no one else has addressed. Thus the comment by the viewer, "SkyTools was done by a professional astronomer." I'm also hoping these videos will, over time, help generate more positive goodwill and more sales for the software. It really is that good. : )

Yes, it's red (in the right way) on my machine. Even though I'm not outside trying to prefer night vision, I've noticed that my own eyes grimace at the bright intensity of full daylight white screens. So the night vision screen you've programmed is just, to me, more attractive in general for a darkened viewing room at night and a darker viewing expectation of live streaming. So I was surprised, when I snapped the screenshot and pasted the screenshot into this thread, that it automatically reversed the image. When I call up the screenshot on my own machine, it still looks exactly like your night vision programming. So the only thing I can guess is that the forum settings somehow reversed the image automatically.

"Object identification" -- it seems like that's what I was expecting my live stream audience to help me do. hahahaha "Human platesolving." haha But thanks to your charts, given enough time, I think we could figure out every 1-billion-light-years-away galaxy. It was just that it was in the last 5 or 10 minutes that we came to that galaxy cluster. But your chart definitely supported the identification of *everything*. And it helped *tremendously* that I could switch to eyepiece view and rotate the chart so it matched with the orientation of the view in Sharpcap. That was so cool - and I don't believe any other chart allows that infinite rotation so easily.

Now I just need to develop all the muscle memory so I remember where all the controls are and how things are controlled. That interface between Atlas an Eyepiece view still seems complex to me - but I'm sure it will come over time. I'm just weird enough that I don't mind "learning over the live stream" so that others can experience the learning with me as I go. : )

So - please keep the rotating eyepiece (and even maybe rotating atlas?) in SkyTools EAA, brother. That's clutch. : )

[theskyhound]

I was wondering of somehow the screen captures were going wonky. That explains it!

Don't worry, nothing is going to go away in EAA. The round eyepiece circle will become a rotatable rectangle. People have suggested rotating the atlas, but given the other view, I'm not sure how useful vs. confusing this might be, so I haven't actually taken the time to do it.

What I mean by identification is this: a window similar to the Eyepiece Viewer, but it pulls your latest image and displays it there. SkyTools adds an object overlay to identify what is seen in the image. I think I have all of the pieces required to do this. I'm just not entirely sure about knowing when to refresh the image and that the necessary image formats are supported.

[PMSchu]

The Interactive Atlas can also be mirrored about the horizontal & vertical axes to give a view with a star diagonal or an inverted view. Looking at your captured image, it looks like flipping the atlas about the horizontal axis would get you close to what the telescope captured. Then you can adjust the zoom level to match the FOV better.

Phil S.

[EmeraldHillsSkies]

I was wondering of somehow the screen captures were going wonky. That explains it!

Don't worry, nothing is going to go away in EAA. The round eyepiece circle will become a rotatable rectangle. People have suggested rotating the atlas, but given the other view, I'm not sure how useful vs. confusing this might be, so I haven't actually taken the time to do it.

What I mean by identification is this: a window similar to the Eyepiece Viewer, but it pulls your latest image and displays it there. SkyTools adds an object overlay to identify what is seen in the image. I think I have all of the pieces required to do this. I'm just not entirely sure about knowing when to refresh the image and that the necessary image formats are supported.

Whoa that would be so cool. Like Deep-Sky Image Annotation in Sharpcap.

[theskyhound]

Right. But you can't really compare the database capabilities of Sharpcap to SkyTools.

[EmeraldHillsSkies]

Copy that. Robin's Deep-Sky Annotation has nowhere *near* the number of background data that SkyTools has. Understood. Thanks Greg.