Hi all I fully agree with Rob. As a President of India's oldest (Estd. 1944) amateur astronomers's association "Jyotirvidya Parisanstha", I used H-A regularly to show various satellites in our regular star parties, which are open to any astronomy lovers, and to educate the people about satellites. For more serious observations, alongwith H-A, I use other softwares like Orbitron. Three Cheers to Chris. Suhas Gurjar Pune, India ----- Original Message ----- From: "Matson, Robert" <ROBERT.D.MATSON@saic.com> To: "'Art Glick'" <omb00900@mail.wvnet.edu>; <SeeSat-D@satobs.org> Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2003 6:04 AM Subject: H-A > 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 > ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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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