Never stop improving! Starry Night 7.4.1 update is now live!

More than a year and a half into the release of Starry Night 7 we are still working furiously to bring fresh improvements and features to Starry Night. Developers see software the same way that artists see their creations - always in need of improvement.

 

7.4.1 Release Notes

New Features:

- Added a preference to support drawing selection labels as plain text (as in V6), instead of textured tags.
- Added Drag-Drop support for dropping SNFs onto the Starry Night sky to open.
- (Enthusiast) Added "Night Vision" mode.
- Added back Ambient Audio.
- Exported Observing Lists now include J2000 positions.
- Remembers your last open/save folder locations and defaults to these on File > Open/Save.


Fixed Bugs / Improvements:

- Fixed setting panoramas in locations that have pre-defined associations (e.g. Toronto, Detroit.)
- All log entries now show up in search results (was missing some with parentheses in their name.)
- Fixed Custom horizon images and editing.
- Fixed date formatting display (OSX).
- Fixed Meteor Shower radiant drawing. (Was too dim on OSX).
- Fixed movie creation of very large movies (OSX).
- Fixed trackpad click and drags (OSX).
- Fixed Constellation search results.
- Planet elongation correctly reported. (Was always showing zero.)
- Equipment List saved immediately on dialog close. (No loss if crash.)
- Satellites no longer use advanced magnitude calculations when not valid (i.e. far above Earth.)

 

The best part of making software is knowing that the changes you make affect so many people who use your creation regularly. The improvements made to satisfy your need for perfection benefit many!

So fire up your Starry Night 7 and tell us what you think about the latest changes!

Starry Night 7, eclipses and ... Elmo

Like most two years olds, my daughter loves Elmo. Something about his high-pitched voice and ever-present smile I guess.

Parents innately learn to tune him out, probably to moderate the risk of going insane listening to that same shrill voice on reruns day after day.

One episode that sticks out in my mind, today more than ever perhaps, puts Elmo in a room with none other than David Beckham. The short ends after Elmo, who pesters Becks to teach him to dribble a soccer ball on his head, learns a new word... Persistence.

Persistence is an extremely important quality, and some might say a disappearing quality these days. It goes hand-in-hand with patience I think, something we can all agree is becoming scarce in this age of on-demand everything.

Persistence, as in the case of Elmo and Becks, often pays off.

Over the past few weeks, I've been involved in an exchange over the accuracy of Starry Night's eclipse predictions. One of our "power users" (who shall remain nameless for now) reported what he believed to be an issue with our calculations. They just didn't match up exactly with what NASA (and other government sites) were reporting.

The discrepancy was small; in fact, the timings were exact, to the sub-second but the sizes of the Earth's shadows (both the umbra and penumbra) were too small by a very small but noticeable fraction.

Normally no-one would even notice this, but in this case it changed our prediction for the April 4th, 2015 eclipse from a Total (as reported by NASA) to a Partial eclipse. That made all the difference to a few people.

I sit down at my 'puter. "I'll figure this out", I say to myself confidently:

  • Were we perhaps using an old or imprecise value for the Earth's diameter? Nope. That was in agreement with the USGS.
  • Were we taking the oblateness of the Earth into account? Yup. A precise calculation there too.
  • Was this somehow rounding or another error in calculation? Nope. Everything seems to check out.

After a few hours of this, I checked with my confrere, Bill (our SkySafari developer) to see if they had the same discord with NASA predictions. They did! And even better (worse, it turns out) both Starry Night, and SkySafari, two completely independently created applications, gave almost exactly the same result!

That sealed it for me. Other matters were more pressing. NASA could be wrong too (note that it's not insane to believe this, the pages we were referring to were intended for the public, maintained by a summer student and weren't necessarily vetted by anyone), or could have used slightly different values for the radius of the Earth. Were THEY accounting for the oblateness? Doubts and lack of information made it difficult.

After presenting my findings to Keiron, our head of support, I let the issue go.

Lots of other stuff to work on.

Again, the power user, and Keiron came back to me. Why were our predictions different? We claim arcsecond precision in our planet and moon positions. How could we make that claim if this discrepancy existed?

Again, I chatted with Bill. He said he had been talking with Keiron too. I Don't know what this annoying user thinks he knows that we don't. What could it be? "The Earth's atmosphere?" Says Bill. I dunno. Does NASA take it into account? It's not clear from their site. How can we compare if they don't say? The discrepancy is so small.

Lots of other stuff to work on.

Again, an email from Keiron. "Aren't you busy?" I think to myself. I open it, a curt reply, ready at my fingertips. This time, the message comes with a link.

"Do you think the Danjon rule explains the difference?" he asks:

http://www.eclipsewise.com/oh/oh-help/LEshadow.html

...

Holy s*&t!

...

Not just a clear explanation of what, how, and by how much the Earth's atmosphere contributes to the shadow, but authored by Fred Espenak himself, The Godfather of eclipse predictions! 

This page on the eclipse, with nicely outlined parameters showed something called "Shadow Enlargement":

http://www.eclipsewise.com/lunar/LEprime/2001-2100/LE2015Apr04Tprime.html

... with a link to a clear explanation of what the Danjon shadow rule is, and its value.

It turns out that the Earth's atmosphere contributes around 1/85 (just over 1%) to the diameter of the Earth's shadow... an effect that we were NOT taking into account in Starry Night or SkySafari... but are now! (SN version 7.1.2+, SkySafari ).

Starry Night has been around for almost 20 years in some form or another, and we have never taken this into account, until now.

We could all learn a little from this power user and Keiron (and Elmo for that matter). It pays to be persistent! 

Thanks for keeping at it guys. Starry Night is that much better for it.

After a few hours of this, I checked with my confrere, Bill (our SkySafari developer) to see if they had the same discord with NASA predictions. They did! And even better (worse, it turns out) both Starry Night, and SkySafari, two completely independently created applications, gave almost exactly the same result!

That sealed it for me. Other matters were more pressing. NASA could be wrong too (note that it's not insane to believe this, the pages we were referring to were intended for the public, maintained by a summer student and weren't necessarily vetted by anyone), or could have used slightly different values for the radius of the Earth. Were THEY accounting for the oblateness? Doubts and lack of information made it difficult.

After presenting my findings to Keiron, our head of support, I let the issue go.

Lots of other stuff to work on.

Again, the power user, and Keiron came back to me. Why were our predictions different? We claim arcsecond precision in our planet and moon positions. How could we make that claim if this discrepancy existed?

Again, I chatted with Bill. He said he had been talking with Keiron too. I Don't know what this annoying user thinks he knows that we don't. What could it be? "The Earth's atmosphere?" Says Bill. I dunno. Does NASA take it into account? It's not clear from their site. How can we compare if they don't say? The discrepancy is so small.

Lots of other stuff to work on.

Again, an email from Keiron. "Aren't you busy?" I think to myself. I open it, a curt reply, ready at my fingertips. This time, the message comes with a link.

"Do you think the Danjon rule explains the difference?" he asks:

http://www.eclipsewise.com/oh/oh-help/LEshadow.html

...

Holy s*&t!

...

Not just a clear explanation of what, how, and by how much the Earth's atmosphere contributes to the shadow, but authored by Fred Espenak himself, The Godfather of eclipse predictions! 

This page on the eclipse, with nicely outlined parameters showed something called "Shadow Enlargement":

http://www.eclipsewise.com/lunar/LEprime/2001-2100/LE2015Apr04Tprime.html

... with a link to a clear explanation of what the Danjon shadow rule is, and its value.

It turns out that the Earth's atmosphere contributes around 1/85 (just over 1%) to the diameter of the Earth's shadow... an effect that we were NOT taking into account in Starry Night or SkySafari... but are now! (SN version 7.1.2+, SkySafari ).

Starry Night has been around for almost 20 years in some form or another, and we have never taken this into account, until now.

We could all learn a little from this power user and Keiron (and Elmo for that matter). It pays to be persistent! 

Thanks for keeping at it guys. Starry Night is that much better for it.

Again, I chatted with Bill. He said he had been talking with Keiron too. I Don't know what this annoying user thinks he knows that we don't. What could it be? "The Earth's atmosphere?" Says Bill. I dunno. Does NASA take it into account? It's not clear from their site. How can we compare if they don't say? The discrepancy is so small.

Lots of other stuff to work on.

Again, an email from Keiron. "Aren't you busy?" I think to myself. I open it, a curt reply, ready at my fingertips. This time, the message comes with a link.

"Do you think the Danjon rule explains the difference?" he asks:

http://www.eclipsewise.com/oh/oh-help/LEshadow.html

...

Holy s*&t!

...

Not just a clear explanation of what, how, and by how much the Earth's atmosphere contributes to the shadow, but authored by Fred Espenak himself, The Godfather of eclipse predictions! 

This page on the eclipse, with nicely outlined parameters showed something called "Shadow Enlargement":

http://www.eclipsewise.com/lunar/LEprime/2001-2100/LE2015Apr04Tprime.html

... with a link to a clear explanation of what the Danjon shadow rule is, and its value.

It turns out that the Earth's atmosphere contributes around 1/85 (just over 1%) to the diameter of the Earth's shadow... an effect that we were NOT taking into account in Starry Night or SkySafari... but are now! (SN version 7.1.2+, SkySafari ).

Starry Night has been around for almost 20 years in some form or another, and we have never taken this into account, until now.

We could all learn a little from this power user and Keiron (and Elmo for that matter). It pays to be persistent! 

Thanks for keeping at it guys. Starry Night is that much better for it.

Starry Night 7: High Resolution Planetary Texture Collection

In recent years, NASA has conducted numerous exploratory missions that provided detailed measurements of the visual appearance and physical characteristics of most of the planets and moons in our solar system. These categories include IR/UV/visible imagery, physical, chemical and geological properties of the celestial bodies.

Measurements range from surface features to physical properties to chemical and geological characteristics. Surface features consist of topography, albedo, roughness and age. Fundamental physical properties include gravity, magnetism and temperature. Chemical and geological quantities comprise elemental composition, mineral distributions, geological maps and crustal thickness. 

Starry Night Pro Plus 7 offers a Planetary Science Texture Compilation with over 100 additional maps. Planetary images and data were derived from the latest datasets available. The original, highest quality sources were used to produce maps with maximum fidelity. Gaps and artifacts in individual datasets were corrected with data from older or alternate sources obtained by other exploratory space missions to produce consistent, high quality images that clearly illustrate the parameters of interest.
 

Earth:
Light Pollution Atlas

Jupiter:
Callisto Color
Callisto Gray
Europa Color
Europa Gray
Ganymede Color
Ganymede Gray
Io Color
Io Geology
Io Gray
Jupiter Color
Shoemaker-Levy

Mars:
Mars Albedo Color
Mars Albedo Gray
Mars Elemental Abundance Set
Mars Geoid
Mars Geological Map
Mars Gravity
Mars Magnetic Field
Mars MDIM
Mars Roughness
Mars Surface Dust Index
Mars Thermal Inertia
Mars Topo Jade
Mars Topo Spectrum
Mars Viking Color
Mars Viking MDIM Merged
Mars Viking Shaded
MOC color
MOC gray

Mercury:
Messenger Color
Messenger Gray
Mercury Messenger Color
Mercury Messenger Gray

Moon:
Clementine Color
Clementine False Color
Clementine Gray
Clementine Iron
Clementine Mineral Ratio
Clementine Optical Maturity
Lunar Gravity
Moon Crustal Thickness
Moon Elemental Abundance Set
Moon Geoid
Moon LROC Gray
Moon Roughness
Moon Temperature
Moon Topo
Moon Illusion Beetle
Moon Illusion Lady
Moon Illusion Lady Reading Book
Moon Illusion Man In Moon
Moon Illusion Rabbit
Moon Illusion St. George

Saturn:
Dione Gray
Enceladus Color
Enceladus Gray
Iapetus Color
Iapetus Gray
Mimas Gray
Phoebe Gray
Rhea Gray
Saturn Bjorn Jonsson
Saturn Hubble
Tethys Gray
Titan Color
Titan Gray
Titan IR
Titan Lakes
Titan Topo
Titan Topo scale

Sun:
Ca II 3933A
FeIX-FeX 171A
FeIX-FeX 171APNG Tiles
FeVII 195A
H-alpha
He II 304A

Venus:
Venus Geoid
Venus Gravity
Venus Magellan Color
Venus Magellan Gray
Venus Topo

Vesta:
Vesta Gray
Vesta Rock Types
Vesta Topo

Starry Night 7: Streaming Data On-Demand

Starry Night Pro Plus 6, when fully installed, occupied more than 10GBs of disk space. The sheer size of it required jumping through lots of technological hoops; from huge downloads to special DVDs, each with their own set of gotchas. This led to a lot of problems, all to deliver every last bit of data, much of which might never be accessed!

With the ever expanding volumes of interesting astronomical data available to the general public, as well as the near ubiquitous availability of high-speed internet access, Starry Night 7 was designed with a new mantra... deliver it on-demand!

Not wanting to sacrifice our tradition of beautifully simulating huge sets of astronomical data, we designed a new, robust system to stream the high-resolution, or rarely accessed data as its needed.

Not only do we now have the ability to deliver you, our users, essentially infinite amounts of astronomical data, but we can now deliver you ONLY that data which you want.

The system, at its base, is quite simple:

Zoom in on a particular piece of the sky, descend onto Mars, or choose one of dozens of available horizon panoramas and Starry Night checks your local hard disk for the necessary files. If they're found, they're loaded into the sky. If not, Starry Night makes a request to our servers to download the necessary data, streaming it to your computer where it will remain for the next time you need it.

This was done in a very limited way in Starry Night 6... only very dim USNO stars were served up by this system.

We have since expanded on that (and will continue to expand on that) to include the AllSkyImage layer and dozens of high-resolution planet surface textures. Horizon Panoramas are next to come along with individual object data, and more and deeper databases.

Some 27 GBs of data rests on our servers, waiting to be streamed! Sit back, zoom in, and enjoy!

Starry Night 7.0.2 and Beyond

Development of Starry Night 7 is proceeding quickly, so I thought I'd take a sec to update everyone on what we're working on.

In the very short term, we'll release Starry Night 7.0.2, mostly to address crashes and other incompatibilities that weren't discovered during beta-testing. We're focusing on issues that make it difficult to use the app, and features that might be broken. I'm taking this week to true up the Equipment list too.

In the weeks to come, we're going to take a solid look at all of the feature requests, suggestions and comments all of you have made, as well as usability issues discovered by our Beta-Testers.

We'll be rewriting the Observation Logging feature, with a particular emphasis on sharing logs... with each other and with other applications. We'll be sure to enable importing of your V6 logs, not to worry!

In addition to improving all of the obvious observing features, we'll be looking at other ways to share experiences with your friends and co-observers, improve add-to and refine our databases, and improve the speed of the application.

Stick with us. Lots of interesting things to come.

Importing SN6 data to SN7 (Or: How I learned to stop worrying and love Sky Data overrides.)

Because of the ubiquity of the internet, the vast volumes of data available to us (and therefore you, the SN user) and new security requirements imposed by operating systems, Starry Night 7 has introduced the idea of a "dynamic" (writeable) Sky Data folder.

In previous versions of SN, the application itself would edit (write to) files in its own Sky Data folder located either in the application package (on OSX) or in the Program Files folder (Windows) and this is now considered very bad behavior.

For that reason, any time SN needs to write/modify a file, we so in a new Sky Data folder located at:

(Windows) \Users\<YourUserName>\AppData\Local\Simulation Curriculum\Starry Night Prefs\

(Note that the AppData folder is often "hidden". A quick Googling can show you how to un-hide it)

(OS X)  /Users/<YourUserName>/Library/Application Support/Simulation Curriculum/Starry Night Prefs/

Note that this is where any "streamed" data will be located too.

While we've made every effort to hide this ugliness from you the user, if for any reason you want to get your hands dirty and edit a file manually, it should first be copied to the same respective path (e.g. /Sky Data/Planet Images) in this new folder, then edited there.

Any file located in this new Sky Data folder should have the effect of overridding the one in our static Sky Data folder.

Now, for the part you've all been waiting for. How do you get all of your Equipment, Distance Spheres, Locations, Preferences, Custom (User) Planets etc. from SN6 to SN7? 

Simply copy the individual files from your old "Prefs" folders into the matching locations in the new "Starry Night Prefs" folder!

Have fun!

Starry Night 7: Motivation, Process, Future

As many of you have noticed, we're back with a brand new version of Starry Night! Rather than list all of the cool new features, I thought I'd take a moment to make clear our motivations for the changes in SN, our process getting to where we are now, and plans for the future.

For many of our loyal, longstanding users, the new user interface is a big change from what they're used to. Our motivation for the change was simple: the interface had gotten to the point where users were spending more time looking at (or looking for!) controls, than looking at the sky. We needed something new, cleaner, less obtrusive.

In our redesign, we followed the general philosophy that the UI should "be there when you need it, disappear when you don't."  The focus should always be on the sky view, never the controls. This for example, is why we moved the Find pane from the left to the right... in general, people read left-to-right. Left is more prominent, so the sky view should always be at the left.

Our move to a "Universal Search" function was similarly motivated. 

We found that over the years, so many of the great new features that we had added were buried under layers of user interface, that not only were they hard to use, but people often never found them in the first place.

With the ability to do a textual search for control items (not just named objects in the night sky), we have opened up a host of existing features to users who didn't even know about them! No longer do you need to know exactly what setting you're looking for, open the Options panel, visually search for it, and click to make a change... simply search for the word (or even a related word) that you're looking for, and you'll probably find it.

While I think we have succeeded in many, many ways, we still have much work to do.

Going forward, we plan on continuing with the idea of "less is more." Not in terms of what you can do (indeed, we are addingfeatures and data) but in what ways you are distracted from what you are doing. Think: more of what you want, less of what you don't.

While we have released it into the wild, we're far from done with it. Starry Night 7 should be thought of as a journey, not a destination.

MOOCs

I'm a big fan of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). I think they'll ultimately revolutionize the way that Universities operate, and they're certainly making them rethink things already.

I've tried my hand at a few for fun, review and professional development (See: Khan Academy, Coursera and many more), but haven't tied any relating to astronomy. Have you? Have you found a good one?

What about amateur astronomy? Could it reliably be taught by video, or is there just no substitute for getting out there and doing it yourself?

Windowed or Fullscreen?

As a developer, I find myself with multiple applications, windows and tabs open on multiple monitors at any given moment. My workflow is that of a typical developer, I think, but probably not that of a typical Starry Night user.

When working on, or simply using Starry Night, I often find myself wondering whether people make use of fullscreen mode, and whether we could provide them a better experience by improving it.

It's not a (typical) productivity application, but neither does it demands the users constant focus, as a game would.

With the emergence of tablets as the dominant (or at the very least, growth) platform, users might expect a more robust full-screen mode.

How do you use Starry Night? Windowed? Fullscreen? If so, when and why?

Sometimes you've got stuff to do, but other times it's just nice to block out everything else, and stare at the sky