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Backup

Backup allows you to save data and program settings to a file. This file can act as a safe backup for your data, or it can act as a convenient way to synchronize settings and data among computers. You can select which settings and data are placed in a file by checking data items.

Controlling Backup of Data

All checks all data items. This results in a complete backup.

None unchecks all data items. This is useful if you want to backup selected items.

Preferences includes

▪Date and time formats

▪12 or 24 hour times

▪Universal or local times

▪Latitude and longitude formats

▪RA and Declination formats

▪Altitude and Azimuth formats

▪Azimuth referred to north or south

▪Metric or English weather units

▪New Document defaults

▪Printed atlas support

▪Print orientation & fit-to-page scaling

▪Backup frequency

▪Classis or verbose catalog lists in deep-sky & star documents

▪DSS default server settings

▪Software update frequency

▪Show Hints on or off

▪Show Import/Export Status on or off

▪Print Saver on or off

▪Show Equipment Bar on or off

▪Favorite App Style

▪Favorite Star Chart Program

▪Favorite DSCs

▪Favorite Weather Device

▪Favorite Sky Quality Meter

▪Favorite Equipment / Observer

▪Favorite Location

▪Favorite Observing Project

▪Favorite NNTP Time Service

History

▪Saves all report layouts to a file. Layout includes column ordering, column hiding, column width.

▪Saves URLs used to obtain orbital elements, NTTP time service synchronization, and web page resources for the Observation Browser.

▪Saves settings for Daily and Yearly Altitude graphs in document viewers.

▪Saves main window tool bar settings.

Stylesheets

▪Saves stylesheets used for reports and XML import/export lists. Stylesheets include font and color settings. Favorite stylesheet is included.

Transforms

▪Saves all transform files used for XML import/export. Transforms define the rules used for converting from an XML file format to another.

Star Chart Programs

▪Saves settings for each star chart program. Favorite star chart program is included with Preferences.

Digital Setting Circles

▪Saves settings for each Digital Setting Circle device. Favorite digital setting circle device is included with Preferences.

Weather Devices

▪Saves settings for each weather device or service. Favorite weather device is included with Preferences.

Sky Quality Meters

▪Saves settings for each Sky Quality Meter. Favorite SQM is included with Preferences.

Sky Conditions

▪Saves Darkness Conditions, Transparency Conditions and Seeing Conditions as shown on the Equipment/Conditions Bar to a file.

Locations

▪Saves all locations in the database to a file. Favorite location is included with Preferences.

Equipment/Observers

▪Saves all equipment to a file. This includes barlows, cameras, eyepieces, filters, and instruments.

▪Saves all observers to a file.

▪Saves the current equipment bundle as shown on the Equipment/Conditions Bar to a file.

Observations

▪Saves entire observing log to a file.

▪Saves all observing sessions to a file.

DSS Images

▪Saves all DSS image files that are in JPEG format. Note that this is a change from previous versions which used GIF format files. If you wish to convert GIF files from previous versions of Deep-Sky Planner to JPEG files for version 9, please see the Image Converter utility on the Knightware website.
Warning - this can be a large amount of data! An estimate of the number of files and the uncompressed storage requirement is shown beneath this checkbox.

Backup

Backup opens a standard Windows Save dialog allowing you to choose the folder and name for your backup file. The folder defaults to the Documents folder for your installation, but you can change this to any folder you wish, including removable storage such as a USB flash drive or OneDrive cloud storage. The default filename is based on the system date of your computer.

If you select OK, the backup begins and progress is shown in the status pane at the bottom of the dialog box. Messages are shown as the backup proceeds. The messages can't be edited, but you can copy and paste the text to the Windows clipboard for use elsewhere.

Stop is available once the backup process begins. It terminates the process without closing the Backup dialog box - you can start over if you wish.

Close closes the dialog box.

Help opens this topic.

The status of the process is displayed in the lower pane as files are saved to the backup file. The process is complete when Backup finished is displayed.

Sky Quality Meter is a product of Unihedron, Inc.