h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Success at last Finally had a clear sky and an open horizon while on holiday in Ireland and saw all 5 planets in the sky Only just caught Mercury with it being very low down, in danger of disappearing behind a little mist but success nonetheless.

GB, Planetarium only works on pdas such as Palm and Sony produce. It isn't available as PC software.

There must be astronomy software packages for PCs though.

I use SkyMap on my PC, you can download it for free from their website. Although the free download is supposedly a "demo" version it still has loads of functionality and has provided all I've needed for the last couple of years.

Sorry forgot the URL - http://www.skymap.com/smp_eval.htm

Funnily enough, MC has just said what I was about to say in this thread. Including the comment about seeing all the current planets visible to the naked eye at the moment.

That wouldn't be because you were in the same place at the same time viewing the same things, would it?



Thanks Caerwynn & MC, for the advice, I'll be trying SkyMap!

I've still not spotted Mercury but Venus is brilliant and the is coming up to and Jupiter is still worth a look. Venus will be this bright until May 1st, so plenty more viewing time.

Ok, I've been rumbled

Sorry GB

I have a Macintosh computer at home (an iMac - not one of the fancy new ones thoughhttp://store.apple.com/Apple/WebObjects/ukstore.woa/90701/wo/H2eEJWgnISYF2oBZ0QE1oDb9lZK/0.0.7.1.0.5.21.1.2.1.1.0.0.1.0) and a Windows machine at w*rk. The Palm is a handheld organiser and uses yet another operating system, so I have to be able to convert between all three at times.

The site I referred to was American and the prices were in Dollars. The Planitarium software was for the Palm handheld machine and was a Windows file for download. I was downloading it to the iMac and hoping that there would be no problems using it.

Hope that helps.

I have tried this out on the PC at work and found it very good. It is freeware. http://www.winstars.net/english/index2.html

turvy

ok thank Turvy, I'll give it a try.



I hope you & MC are having a great time, Phil!

...me too GB - sometimes I look for the Start Menu on the iMac and the Dock (the approximate equivalent) on the PC...( I'm afraid to admit!).

Here is some real fun if you haven't seen them before.

http://www.macopinion.com/columns/tangible/04/03/31/index.html
http://www.macopinion.com/columns/tangible/04/04/01/index.html
www.uktsupport.co.uk/humour/wordfornortherners.pdf
http://www.jardmail.co.uk/attachments/windaz2000.gif

turvy