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The developers of our award-winning Starry Night® software are pleased to announce the release of version 6.2.3, which is available now for purchase. Users of earlier version 6 software can upgrade for free! Version 6.2.3 is the most robust version yet, with performance-enhancing features such as Smooth Window Fading and Transparent Floating Windows. And Version 6.2.3 is compatible with Windows Vista! Starry Night® has never been better! So don’t delay, get the new version 6.2.3 today!.

Starry Night® has never been better. So don’t delay, get the new version 6.2 today!

For the advanced amateur astronomer, the full-color AllSky CCD mosaic, sophisticated telescope controls and comprehensive observational tools included in Starry Night Pro Plus version 6 will engage you in the hobby like no other software.

The biggest single addition to Starry Night software since its inception, the full-color AllSky CCD image mosaic of the entire night sky visible from Earth weighs in at 6.44 billion pixels in size. Named AllSky for its uniform coverage from pole to pole, it's a single picture of the whole sky that has now been precisely mapped to Starry Night's computer generated stars and databases. Previously only available to Windows users through Desktop Universe planetarium software, the display of the AllSky image has been drastically improved in Starry Night and is now accessible to Mac users as well.

View on your computer screen an image better than the best-trained human eye can capture in real-time viewing through a telescope on a good seeing night. See the entire Milky Way in exquisite detail and then zoom in to explore dust lanes and nebulae. Instead of dots and circles, you will see an actual photo of a star or a deep sky object.

Smoothly and swiftly navigate this full color photograph of the entire night sky, to a limiting magnitude of 14-15. Five years in development, the AllSky CCD mosaic is comprised of about 20,000 individual images, originally imaged at a resolution of 12 arcseconds per pixel with a scientific grade, custom built AP9E CCD camera.

The AllSky image in Starry Night presents the ENTIRE sky as a full-color, seamless mosaic at 5 resolution levels depending on your zoom setting. This consistent resolution, color and depth of coverage eliminates the uncertainties of comparing images from many and varied sources. Zoom from the widest possible view of 180 degrees to 0.5 degree field of view.

If you have the processing power, set the AllSky image to be more precise and a better match between the photographic stars in the AllSky image and the Starry Night stars. For the highest quality AllSky image, you will need a video card with a minimum of 96 MB VRAM.

Version 6 includes an additional 6 GB of the AllSky image in DDS texture format, which enables the AllSky image to load up to 20X faster.

In addition, at wide fields of view, the AllSky image can be rendered via shaders for perfect rendering accuracy and a dramatic speed improvement, but you will need a higher-end OpenGL 2.0 capable graphics card to see this phenomenal improvement. We recommend 128 MB nVidia GeForce 6600 (or higher) or ATI Radeon X800 (or higher).

In all, Starry Night Pro Plus version 6 has over 25 new features that bring more power and control to your observing and imaging. Starry Night Pro Plus will change how you look at the night sky.

Exclusive to Pro Plus:

• Zoom in on full-color AllSky CCD image mosaic of the entire night sky to a limiting magnitude of 14-15, mapped precisely to Starry Night's databases
• AllSky CCD image loads 20X faster in DDS texture format (additional 6 GB of hard drive space needed)
• View positions and outlines of 1400 dark, emission, planetary and reflection nebulae
• Identify 1700 globular and open star clusters
• Fly over super-high resolution 24-bit color map of Mars land mass topography above the sea
• Hover over Earth and see details within 1 km (0.6 miles) resolution
• Create your own astrophotography using imaging plug-in to integrate Starry Night and MaxIm DL imaging software (sold separately, Windows only)

New Features for Version 6.2.3:

• We have drastically updated the Apollo Space Missions files and models in this 6.2.3 release. We have added new orbit 'segments' describing in detail the outbound, orbital, and inbound segments of these Moon missions. It is now possible to display these segments individually and accurately set the time to match the times of these events. Information about these individual mission segments is now displayed in the Info Panel. We have included the Lunar Landing craft along with their descent paths and full 3D models. We also include new Favorites files with interesting pre-set views of several of these Moon missions.
• New Appulse Event Searching alerts you when the Moon is near bright planets
• New Apollo Space Missions feature lets you explore the trajectories of the Apollo spacecraft not available anywhere else!
• 10 New Earth Horizon Panoramas let you observe from a mountain top, the shores of the Dead Sea, a Winter Star Party and more
• 65 New 3-D Asteroid Models let you explore these intriguing celestial bodies
• New Paleogeographic Earth Maps let you travel back in time to Earth’s distant past
• New Meteor Showers Update makes your meteor shower observations even better
• New Extrasolar Planets Update helps you learn even more about planets beyond our Solar System
• New Equipment Database Update means you can use the software with a growing list of equipment
• Extended Constellation Descriptions provide more detailed information on all 88 constellations
• Smooth Window Fading (Win XP, Vista) and Transparent Floating Windows (Vista) will enhance your experience

Other Features:

• Plan observing sessions with Event Finder that instantly displays celestial events, such as lunar and solar eclipses and conjunctions, for months far into the future
• Create Observing Lists of astronomical objects using a variety of filters such as magnitude, altitude above horizon, type or database. Quickly see what objects you have observed and which ones you still need to hunt down
• Find targets effortlessly with three-view starhopping charts customized to your equipment
• Select your equipment from expanded default database of over 300 Orion, Meade, Celestron and Vixen scopes, binoculars, SBIG, Apogee, FLI and Starlight Express CCD chips and more
• Recognize 1000+ craters, valleys and more instantly with surface feature outlines for the Moon
• View the locations of 160+ extrasolar planets
• Enjoy 8 additional photorealistic Earth horizon panoramas
• Take advantage of improved Digital Settings Circles Support for non-motorized telescopes such as Orion SkyQuest IntelliScope, NGCMAX, Lumicon Sky Vector, Discovery Digital Star Finder, Orion SkyWizard III, and Celestron Advanced Astromaster
• Control your robotic telescope focuser with Computer Controlled Focuser Support (Windows only). Supported models include AstroOptik telescopes, Astrophysics GTO mount, Finger Lakes focusers, Gemini equipped mount, JMI Smart Focus, Meade LX200 and Autostar, Optec TCF-S, and PCFocus.
• Smoothly track and follow satellites with the Meade LX200 GPS telescope (Mac only)
• And much more.
• Controls most popular brands of robotic telescopes, including Orion SkyQuest Intelliscope, Meade LX200 and Autostar, Celestron Nexstar series and all ASCOM compliant scopes (additional cable required)
• Explore 65,000,000 stars
• Access 500+ million stars online
• Explore PGC Catalog of 980,000 galaxies
• Choose from over 30 photorealistic horizon panoramas
• Add custom field of view indicators to match your telescope eyepiece, binoculars, CCDs or DSLRs

Starry Night Pro Plus version 6 includes:

• 2 DVD-ROMs of Starry Night software for Windows and Macintosh
• Exclusive SkyTheater DVD with over an hour or original movies about space
• Starry Night Companion, a 192-page illustrated astronomy book
• New, comprehensive 210-page User's Guide

"If you wish to recreate the majesty of the night sky indoors, then it's hard to imagine how it could be improved. I had many happy hours just admiring the view. ... it's awesome. ..So, will I be changing from my favorite software? ..the answer is a resounding yes."
Sky & Telescope Magazine — April 2006

To run Starry Night Pro Plus version 6 you need:

A DVD-ROM drive is required for the installation of Starry Night Pro Plus version 6 on your computer.

Windows: Requires Windows XP, 800 MHz or higher processor, 256 MB RAM (512 MB recommended) and 5 GB (11 GB needed for full install) of hard disk space. 64 MB (128 MB recommended) OpenGL 1.4 capable graphics card (OpenGL 2.0 is required for features like shaded sky, animated grass and fast AllSky rendering at wide FOV). Minimum recommended monitor resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels. DVD-ROM drive required for installation.

Macintosh: Universal Binary runs natively on Intel and PPC Macintosh computers. Requires OS X 10.3.9 or higher, G4 800 MHz or higher processor, 256 MB RAM (512 MB recommended) and 5 GB (11 GB needed for full install) of hard disk space. Will not run on OS 9.x or earlier. 64 MB (128 MB recommended) OpenGL 1.4 capable graphics card (OpenGL 2.0 is required for features like shaded sky, animated grass and fast AllSky rendering at wide FOV). Minimum recommended monitor resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels. DVD-ROM drive required for installation.

Basic support for joysticks recognized by Windows XP and Mac OS X.

Requirements for Video DVD: Home DVD player and TV, or computer with DVD player.

Starry Night 6.0.6 will run on a Windows Vista computer provided the latest graphics card Vista drivers supporting hardware-accelerated OpenGL are installed. At present, there are Vista drivers that do not support hardware-accelerated OpenGL to the extent required by Starry Night. This is beyond our control.

The following graphics cards have been successfully tested against Starry Night on Windows Vista using latest manufacturer's drivers:

nVidia: 7600, 7300, 6600, 6200
ATI: X1900, X1650, X1550, X1300, X800 (non-AGP only)

By no means is this an exhaustive list. We are certain there are many more cards that will work and we will add more cards to this list as we are able to fully test them.

AllSky CCD Image and Associated Data copyright 2005 Main Sequence Software Inc. All rights reserved.