Hi Art and List, I thought I'd say a few words in defense of Chris Peat and his Heavens Above service. H-A has probably done more to introduce new people to our little hobby of satellite observing than any software program that preceded it. He has put together a system whereby someone who has little or no astronomical experience (or patience for learning to install and run satellite propagation software) can successfully observe a satellite the very first clear night that they try. So H-A was specifically designed with beginners in mind, and in this area it performs exceptionally well. Most people are perfectly content with H-A's capabilities and simplicity of operation, but there are a few people like Art who become intrigued enough by the hobby that they want to "push the envelope" a bit and attempt more difficult objects, achieve higher positional and/or photometric accuracies, or try more unusual types of observations (conjunctions, transits, shadow-entry/exit timings, identification of unknowns, flashing GEO sat timings, etc.) For such people, I strongly encourage them to do as Art has done and download one or more of the powerful freeware and shareware tools that are available for general-purpose satellite propagation. Since you mentioned that you're an old "DOS-head", Art, you might enjoy playing around with my SkyMap satellite software. The program has a lot of features, so there is a learning curve to overcome, but if you are comfortable with text editors and making minor changes to CONFIG.SYS (adding the ANSI.SYS device driver), you should have minimal difficulties. I'll let this message also serve as an announcement to all that I've posted SkyMap version 6.6 to my webspace for anyone who wants to download it. I had originally hoped to add a few more features before this release, but I don't expect to have any significant time to work on it over the next few months, so now's as good a time as any to freeze a version. There have been a number of changes since version 6.5, so read through the first page or two of SKY66.NEW to see what's been fixed/added. The ZIP files to download are: http://members.cox.net/mojave_meteorites/sky66.zip http://members.cox.net/mojave_meteorites/sky66aux.zip I've also updated the epoch of the asteroid orbital elements, which is zipped separately for those who want the latest: http://members.cox.net/mojave_meteorites/asteroid.zip New users will also want to download the Hipparcos star files: Stars of magnitude +8.5 or brighter: http://members.cox.net/mojave_meteorites/hip8.zip http://members.cox.net/mojave_meteorites/hip8idx.zip and stars dimmer than magnitude +8.5: http://members.cox.net/mojave_meteorites/hip9.zip http://members.cox.net/mojave_meteorites/hip9idx.zip Any current users who would like their registered executables updated, please contact me and I'll be happy to send you a replacement. Best wishes, Rob ----------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from SeeSat-L, send a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@satobs.org List archived at http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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