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Knightware released Deep-Sky Planner 5 on 25 January.

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Deep-Sky Planner 4 CD
Deep-Sky Planner 5

Observation Planning and Logging Software
for Astronomers

Deep-Sky Planner 5 astronomy planning software for Windows provides the powerful, accurate tools you need to make your time at the telescope more efficient and enjoyable. Whether you observe planets, comets, asteroids, carbon stars, doubles, variables or deep-sky objects, Deep-Sky Planner helps you get more from your visual and photographic observing time. Use it indoors to prepare for observing or at the telescope while observing. Use it to log and manage your observations. Enjoy open, non-proprietary access to your observing log and exceptional flexibility in reporting.

Customers often report that Deep-Sky Planner has the best user interface among astronomy software products. That's no accident: it's a commitment to making your observing as productive and enjoyable as possible. See why.
"I've never had it so easy in preparing observing lists."
- John O, Pennsylvania
"I am enjoying Deep-Sky Planner.
It's got the best interface I've come across in all the observation planning programs I've tried."
- Mark T, California

Product Highlights

Data

 Support for Sun, moon, planets, comets, asteroids and over 1 million cataloged objects is included. The catalog data is treated differently than any other software in the industry. See why.

Reporting

 Many report styles are included for planning and logging. Each can be printed, or saved in HTML, plain text or delimited text (CSV) formats. Reports may be customized extensively. See how.

Logging

The logging facility is fully integrated with all planning features. The software learns which observing session and equipment you are using as you enter observations so that your workflow is optimized. The log is also fully searchable and reports are customizable. See how

oal20The log now supports recording extensive sky and weather conditions data, including direct reading support for Unihedron's Sky Quality Meter models LE, LU and LR.

Your observations are also more portable than ever: Deep-Sky Planner 5 supports OpenAstronomyLog 2.0. You can also save your log reports as HTML, plain text, or delimited text (CSV).

Star Charting

 Deep-Sky Planner interoperates intelligently with leading planetarium software products giving you the very best star charting functions available. Use with TheSky6, Starry Night, Redshift and Cartes du Ciel. See how.

Controlling Telescopes

 Enjoy computer control of your telescope, and receive real-time feedback from your telescope or digital setting circles (uses ASCOM) See how.

Ease of Use

Unlike most observing software, Deep-Sky Planner is designed to follow Microsoft's Windows Logo product guidelines. The software interacts with Windows in many standard ways that most observing software doesn't. It also works with Windows 7 and Vista without security problems. See how.


There's much more that makes Deep-Sky Planner a serious solution to your astronomy planning and logging software needs. Click to learn more, and if you have any questions about the product, please send your question to Knightware.

CD
Available on CD

Purchase Now

Please visit the Knightware Store to make your secure online purchase using PayPal or Google Checkout. Shipping is free.

Solution Graphics

Google Checkout Acceptance Mark

Deep-Sky Planner 5 has a 30 day money back guarantee (see policies).

The latest from the Knightware Blog

Windows 7 64-bit Checks Out Ok

More in-depth testing of Deep-Sky Planner 5 has now been completed with a 64-bit version of Windows 7 (Home Premium edition). Testing was conducted with UAC enabled, and no problems were detected with Deep-Sky Planner 5. Since more and more customers are upgrading to Windows 7 or buying new computers with Windows 7, the test results for the features that seem most prone to compatibility problems are described below.

Windows 7 Upgrade advisor states that a computer should have 2 GB of RAM or more to run the 64 bit version of Windows 7. These tests were completed with 1.5 GB of RAM.

Telescope Control

ASCOM v5.0a was installed. The installation process reported errors registering the Simulator.RotatorSimulator object. Since Deep-Sky Planner 5 does not use this object, the error was ignored. All slewing and syncing operations worked correctly with the Simulator driver. That indicates that Deep-Sky Planner is compatibile with ASCOM. Any particular driver may have its own problems.


Star Chart Interoperation
  • TheSky6 Serious Astronomer edition - worked with no problems.
  • Redshift 7 Premium edition - worked with no problems.
  • Cartes du Ciel 3 - worked with no problems.
  • Starry Night 6 Enthusiast edition.

    The plug-in for Deep-Sky Planner 5 requires an update. This can be downloaded from the Deep-Sky Planner Community page (Licensed users only).

    Starry Night requires an update to support changing the Field of View when you do Show Chart in Deep-Sky Planner. If the Field of View is not changed, Show Chart works correctly. Simulation Curriculum advises that this update is forthcoming and will be v 6.3.8.

    Both Starry Night and Deep-Sky Planner must be 'Run as Administrator'.

    Version 6.0.0.0 worked but the OpenGL service could not start. Video was low-resolution.

    Version 6.3.3 worked but the driver for the test computer's NVidia GEForce 6800 graphics card had to be updated. Starry Night loaded and displayed part of its main window and then stopped with an AppCrash message before the driver update. Note that Windows 7 was installed on this computer within the last week and the graphics card driver still needed to be updated. Java 6 update 18 (for 32-bit browser) and QuickTime v 7.6.5 were installed.

    Important: Simulation Curriculum frequently advises users to update graphics card drivers. Take heed - this advice can save time and trouble.

    Version 6.3.6 - have not tried.

XML processing
Many of Deep-Sky Planner's data files are stored in XML format. No problems were detected with the XML parser or XML transform processor under Windows 7.

Posted on 2 March 2010 | 7:34 am

Hardware and software requirements:

You need the following hardware and operating system software to run Deep-Sky Planner 5:

This product has been tested with Windows XP (32 bit), Windows Vista (32 bit and 64 bit), and Windows 7 (32 and 64 bit), including installations on multiple user accounts.