Do we know if the DSO database issues with SS6 Pro are likely to be fixed or is this kind of thing only fixed with major releases? Just wanted to know before I review it.
Owen
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11 comments
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Bill Tschumy Are you referring to the in-app purchase of the extended catalogs? Those will be fixed in the release we will submit later this week.
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Owen Hi Bill no I was referring to things like the issues with the Arp and Abell catalogues that were raised in the beta tests.
Owen
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Bill Tschumy We don't have any current plans to add objects that are missing from this catalogs. We may get to this later this year, but it is not clear when. This is not a new issue with SS6.
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Owen No it isn't but I had hoped that going forwards these things would be ironed out. Any program is only as good as its data no matter how many fancy things you add to the UI. I don't know from whom you get your databases but they need to get their act sorted otherwise what is the point of adding all the extra stuff if the base data is not right.It is always an issue when the software is written not by astronomers but by software engineers. If SkySafari really wants to be taken seriously then it has to address these issues otherwise it will be forever a gimmick for beginners.
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Bill Tschumy Can you please point me to the postings during beta testing where these issues were discussed?
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Owen Hi Bill I would but the iOS beta forum does not seem available on the site anymore. I think many of the issues raised by me there would be about this though.
Owen
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Bill Tschumy Ah, I didn't notice we were talking about the iOS apps. Yes, that beta forum has been removed but I will see if I can find it.
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Bill Tschumy OK, I looked up some of the old posts. Things like Abell 426 are excluded because it doesn't contain galaxies in our database. In fact I'm having a hard time finding out what galaxies are part of this cluster.
SkySafari does not have an object type of "galaxy cluster". Instead we attach the cluster name to the individual objects in the cluster. So if you search for "Abell 77" you will find 4 galaxies in that group that we have in the database.
My recollection when we added Arp and Abell designations is that we found a list of members of the cluster and, if they were in our database, we added the designation to that object. If there is an Arp or Abell group excluded, that is because we couldn't attach it to anything in our DB.
Maybe at some point we will add "galaxy cluster" as top level type and we can then add everything based upon the RA/Dec of the cluster center. That will not happen at least until next year.
So go ahead and write your review based on what you see. If we get dinged for this, well so be it.
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Owen Interesting.. Abell 426 contains a bunch of NGC galaxies including NGC 1275, 1272, 1273 etc. I assume these are in the database. Anyway perhaps with SS7 you can get a better database for these things and work from there.
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Bill Tschumy Where did you find a list of galaxies for Abell 426? Perhaps we need a better list.
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Owen This is a good place to start http://pw2.netcom.com/~ahighe/home.html But almost all the Windows planning tools and charting programs that I use have this information.
Owen
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