Magnify Planets

This is a fun and educational feature.  Starry Night allows you to enlarge the sizes of solar system objects.  When this feature is used, the object will no longer be drawn to scale but there are advantages.  For example, when you hover above the solar system, the planets are mere dots.  You can use the magnification feature to enlarge the sizes of the planets, making them easily visible.  

The magnification slider is hidden by default.  To view the magnification slider open the Find pane and right-click (Windows) or ctrl-click (Macintosh) on a column heading, such as “Name”.  In the menu that opens, select “Magnification”.



A new slider will appear under the heading “Mag.”  Move the slider to the right to magnify the size of the object.

Hide Planets

The hide feature will hide a solar system object from view.  For example, if you were showing the orbit of the Earth, you could hide all of the other planets and avoid being distracted by the motion of the other planets.

Like the magnification feature, the hide feature is hidden by default.  To view the hide checkbox column open the Find pane and right-click (Windows) or ctrl-click (Macintosh) on a column heading, such as “Name”.  In the menu that opens, select “Hide”.




A new checkbox will appear to the left of the Alt. column.  Click on the box to hide the object.  In this example, Venus has been hidden from view.