Thank you for showing an interest in beta-testing Starry Night V7!

Please understand that for many reasons V7 beta-testing is restricted to a limited number users and, so, only a certain number of users will be accepted into the beta-testing pool.  

The beta-testing process is as follows:

Part 1:

1.  Visit: beta.starrynight.com

2.  Chose the option "Please apply to participate".

3. Please fill out the beta-test application - provide your name, email, and tell is a little about yourself.  Please use that personal info field to describe your technical qualifications, your previous experience with Starry Night, and your telescope/mount equipment set-up. We are looking for a range of users, and telescope systems.   Agree to the terms & conditions.  Click "Apply for the best test."

4.  You will see that your application has been submitted:

Part 2:

5.  If you are accepted for beta-testing you will receive a confirmation email that says:

"Congratulations!  You have been selected to participate in Starry Night Beta Test program

You may create your account and start using Starry Night at: http://beta.starrynight.com/register..."

Click the link in your email.

6.  You will be asked to set up an official beta-test account.  Please provide your name, email, and choose a password:

7.  Downloading & Registering SN7

After signing in you will have access to the latest Starry Night V7 beta downloads.  You will also receive a V7 trial User Name & Registration Number.  Download a beta version for your operating system and take V7 for a test drive!

Look above:  Your User Name and Registration Number is under the download links.  

If you need your registration at any time please sign in again at beta.starrynight.com

8.  Beta reporting!  Undoubtedly, you will discover bugs & crashing within the program.  And, whatever you discover we would really like to know about it!!  

There are two ways to submit beta reports:

First, if Starry Night crashes then either immediately, or upon the next launch of the application, you will see a crash report window called "Problem Report for Starry Night".  Please provide your name, email and a description of the sequence of steps that lead to the crash.

Second, if you discover a bug in the program you will have to login to your beta account to report it.

To submit a bug report please sign into your beta test account, and click on the link "Anything to report? Submit a bug!".  Please fill out the form.  Along with your name and email please provide the program's version number (visible on the loading panel at start up), a short summary, and the problem description.

Most importantly, however, we need to know how to reproduce the bug/crash that you have discovered!  So, please take your time to describe exactly what sequence of steps within the program leads to the bug/crash result you have discovered.  If we can not reproduce your bug/crash we can not fix it!  And if we can not fix it, then your reporting is not useful.  Since we do not want anyone to spend their valuable time submitting bug/crash reports that are not ultimately useful to the beta testing PLEASE be sure to carefully consider your description of the issue when submitting your report.  If you also have a dropbox account (or something similar) you might want to help us better understand what you have discovered by including links to screenshots taken from within the program (see example below).

Adding images to your ticket submissions:

Quite a few of you have been incredibly helpful by sharing images along with the description of the issue.  Some of you have asked how best to share images.  Here are a couple of suggestions:

You can use dropbox.com to share images.

Or

http://i.cubeupload.com/  <--- no sign up, just drag and drop, and you receive an instant url.

Or

http://imgur.com/ will work too.

Please add any shared image urls to your future beta tickets.  They are very helpful!

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This is an example of a good bug report:

"If selecting the drop down menu as follows:

View ---> Hide All Controls —> then Show All Controls —> this results in the menu options becoming greyed out —> then the menu options return after some time —> then if choosing Hide All Controls the program will crash.

 https://www.dropbox.com/s/ubnenv5c94enp3i/Screenshot%202014-02-26%2016.27.34.png"

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This is an example of a bad bug report:

"the menu item goes grey..."

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We are asking you to report on demonstratively reproducible issues regarding the objective functionality of the program.  Please keep this in mind when you are preparing a report.  We appreciate that our users will have lots of feedback concerning the subjective aspects of Starry Night, i.e, how the menu system is designed, or whether a specific double star catalog has been included.  However, while subjective feedback is important to us for the long-term development of Starry Night the purpose of  this beta-testing cycle is to identify software bugs & other issues specific to existing functionality.

If you have multiple bugs/crashes to discuss in one report, please number them is separate paragraphs #1, #2, #3 etc, as this will make it easier for both parties.

With your assistance Starry Night V7 will launch successfully - for which Simulation Curriculum and all our loyal Starry Night users will be forever grateful.

Thank you in advance for all your efforts during the beta-tesing process.

Kind regards,

Simulation Curriculum