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SkyChart III

SkyChart III - 3.6.4

Sky simulation planetarium & telescope control

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All Time: (5.0)
This Version: (5.0)
Current Version: 3.6.4
Release Date: 2004-02-16
License: Update
Downloads (this version): 2,686
Downloads (all versions): 3,502
Price: $49.95

Information Related to Version:

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Product Description:

SkyChart III is an advanced planetarium program that accurately simulates and displays the sky as it appears in the present, or from thousands of years in the past or future. With SkyChart III you can view the sky from any place on Earth, from any object in the solar system, or even from thousands of light years beyond it.

SkyChart III is also a telescope control program, supporting all of the leading computer-controlled telescopes available on the market today. SkyChart III lets you enjoy the benefits of computer-aided observing: see where the telescope is pointing on your computer screen, or slew the telescope to any object in the sky with a single click of the mouse.

What's new in this version:

  • This release brings the code base of the English-language version up to sync with the newly released Spanish-language version. A number of changes were made to support better internationalization/localization:
    * The decimal-point character is now locale-specific; decimals are displayed as "," in European locales, and "." in North America. (The computer's regional settings are used to determine the locale.) Decimal points in text import files and settings files are always assumed to be the US (".") decimal-point character, for consistency. [Note: this functionality is only present in the Windows version of SkyChart III; we're still trying to make it work on Mac OS X.]
    * All strings in data files, and settings descriptions in settings files, are converted to Windows Latin-1 encoding before being written to disk. This ensures that accented and other european-language characters will translate properly between Mac and Windows.
    * A case-sensitive search for an object name is now sensitive to both case and diacritics (e.g. accents, umlauts, etc). When case is ignored, diacritics are also ignored - e.g. a search for "Jupiter" will also find "Júpiter", and a search for "Saturn" will also find "Säturn".
  • In the chart legend, the full names of deep sky objects are being displayed, instead of abbreviations.
  • In the "Object Info" window, a number of text strings and buttons were rearranged. The object type for the Sun is now displayed as "Star"; for the major planets as "Planet"; for moons as "Moon". The star type for single stars is now simply listed as "Star".
  • For years outside 1600 - 2100 A.D., the program uses new expressions for the precession of the equinox provided by W. M. Owen of JPL. These new expressions should provide realistic results for a much wider interval of +/- 500,000 years from J2000. (The previous expressions "blew up" and displayed highly unrealistic results after roughly 10,000 years from J2000.) For the time period 1600 - 2100 A.D., the previous (IAU 1976) expressions for precession are still used.
  • Previous versions of the Windows installer for SkyChart III installed a 16-bit version of the uninstall application (UnWise.exe). This update replaces it with the 32-bit version.
  • Fixed a crash in the Mac OS X version that occurred when moving the mouse inside a progress-bar dialog.
  • Removed timing code in the Mac OS X version that was causing a performance-profiling dialog to appear sporadically.
  • The Mac OS X version of SkyChart III can now launch properly on Macs with 2.0 GB of RAM or more installed. The Mac OS X installer/updater application should no longer display a warning on Macs with more than 2.0 GB of RAM. (This warning can safely be ignored, however.)
  • The Mac OS X version now has the main window's "close" button enabled; clicking it quites the application. The "Quit" menu command has moved from the File menu to the "SkyChart III" menu, for better conformance with Apple's Mac OS X interface guidelines.

Operating System Requirements:

This product is designed to run on the following operating systems:

  • Mac OS X 10.3
  • Mac OS X 10.2
  • Mac OS Classic

Additional Requirements:

  • Mac OS 8 - 9.2.2
    • or
  • Mac OS X 10.2 or higher

Screenshots:

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Download Links:

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Feedback Summary:

This Version:
Overall Rating: (5.0) Features: (5.0) Support: (5.0)
Ease of Use: (5.0) Quality / Stability: (5.0) Price: (5.0)
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SkyChart III Commentaryworks just fine... - Version: 3.6.4, 9/23/2008 10:50AM PST

Gennx30
on my iMac with 10.5.5
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SkyChart III CommentarySigh -- - Version: 3.6.4, 8/11/2008 09:04PM PST

dylan3--2008
No longer launches in Leopard. My favorite sky application is now defunct.
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SkyChart III ReviewHow sad...Southern Sky was on the verge of... - Version: 3.6.4, 5/4/2006 10:31AM PST

Gennx30
releasing SKYCHART 4 -and a 3.9.2b2 was put up for testing and it had OPEN GL!- among other improvments.
Then they were bought by a lame ass company called Carina Software, who killed off SKYCHART to sell their own product, VOYAGER-a vastly inferior App-at vastly increased prices.
IF you hunt around you may still find SKYCHART 3.6 discs-which you need to update to the final 3.6.4
Now if someone could only find a way to disable the Dec 31, 2005 beta expiration date on v 3.9...
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