0

Should SkySafari 6 Pro Show The Horizon Panorama When Using Equilateral Coordinates? (Answer: No)

evariste

December 06, 2019 09:59

Answered

Follow

Many failures in Mac Mojave 10.14.3 ...making it  unusable. E.g. sometimes sky disappears altogether; sky view locks in some wide FOV, usually the whole celestial sphere!; the horizon settings are ignored; can't rotate sky; many others.....etc. Most of these happen randomly, e.g. it may start with horizon as selected in settings but soon the horizon disappears and no matter what you do it never returns. Going back to original default settings, blacks out the whole sky, even when location is set. Restarting it comes up correctly but then soon gets the random failures.....

thanks

Jon

• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn

7 comments

• 0
  
  Keiron Smith December 06, 2019 17:16

  Hi Jon, 

  I suggest uninstalling and reinstalling the program.  SkySafari does not have all the issues on Mojave.  We had many SkySafari users with Mojave for a year, and this has not been reported before by anyone.  I had SkySafari running fine on Mojave for a year.  If you reinstall and still find the same issues please include screenshots showing the issues in question.

  Thanks!

• 0
  
  evariste December 08, 2019 18:24

  thanks Keiron,

  I followed your suggestion but with no success. After a little investigation what i discovered is that at least one source of the trouble ( both in 10.14.3 and 10.14.6...the versions i have..  and   SkySafari 6 Pro 6.4.0) is caused by selecting "Equatorial Coordinates". Then no matter what horizon you select, it's ignored; the sky background changes from the really nice misty dark blue to black for some reason...no real problem...but up/down navigation gets locked with a complete celestial sphere; h and H just make the meridian rotate while the sky stays fixed...and other issues, all of which you can only resolve by resetting to defaults and restarting ( after a sky black out) which gets back to horizon ( alt/az) coords and everything seems good. So not anywhere near as bad as i first thought, so apologies for the (now) exaggerated conclusion! Small annoyance about equatorial coordinates, as that's how a lot of 'scopes work and finding by sliding along R.A. or Dec from a bright object is useful, so would appreciate that working in the app.

  ( i can send screen shots if you still think that's needed?)

  Do you have a fully working version in Catalina? as i would happily upgrade to Catalina  and leave this problem behind !

  Thanks

  Jon

• 0
  
  Keiron Smith December 10, 2019 13:10

  Hi Jon, 

  Please attach a screenshot what you see, and include your exact menu steps to reproduce that issue.

  Please also explain why you are selecting Equatorial Coordinates?

  Thanks!

• 0
  
  evariste December 10, 2019 14:29

  Hi Keiron,

  thanks for coming back so quickly. I've included a screenshot of what happens when you select : Coords->Equatorial Coordinates. I purposely scrolled down to show how there is no horizon ( southern sky) even though it 's set to `'realistic" ( or any other choice) ( after hitting  "done"). As you can see the green meridian line ends where it assumes the horizon should be?. Can't show this briefly but if you hit "h" of "H" to advance/retard time by 1 hour , the meridian line just swings across the sky instead of the sky rotating ( as in other coord modes)

  

   

  why "equatorial coordinates"? Sorry, bit of an odd question? It's how telescopes with equatorial mounts work and how the celestial sphere is mapped, though some popular ones use azimuth and altitude which is fine but not for tracking across the sky to follow the movement of stars etc. The R.A. and Dec tracking works fine in this mode, which is really useful.

  Many thanks

  Jon ( just in case anyone gets the wrong impression....I love this application, it really is outstanding and so well thought out both visually and ergonomically !!)

  P.S how are you supposed to get out of Orbit mode...only thing i could do was close SkySafari, no key combination i tried did it?

• 0
  
  Keiron Smith December 13, 2019 13:17

  Hi Jon, 

  Equatorial coordinates change the position of the horizon line over time.  A you say, this is really used with a equatorial mount.  The horizon panorama is removed to offer a cleaner interface experience.

  When in Orbit mode, you will see a tiny Earth graphic at the bottom/center of the screen.  Click the Earth to return to your home location.

  Note the Alt/Az option is actually called "Horizon".

  Thanks!

• 0
  
  evariste December 14, 2019 16:07

  Thanks Keiron,

  I'm not clear on what you mean. For example, in Stellarium, the horizon sits fixed while the sky rotates whether you are in horizon or equatorial coordinates; which allows you to see what's coming up in whatever direction at your obs site is best. And as most of us are in some restricted urban/suburban site, it helps.  OK, not having a horizon line/image isn't a stopper, as the scope view tracks perfectly in whichever coords you choose/prefer....

  BUT a horizon line/image is really useful as it includes the compass directions (N NE E....which SkySafari does in Horizon coords) so you have a quick reference of what's in which direction without having to be up to date on the sidereal clock!

  If you guys prefer not to spoil the wonderful view of the whole celestial sphere with a dirty horizon, ok...and i hope i can make a trip to Australia one day to use it ! It's no big deal as you can easily  flip back and forth between coord modes to find the compass directions. So if you prefer this as a " feature" so be it !

  Many thanks

  Jon

• 0
  
  Keiron Smith December 16, 2019 13:32

  Hi Jon, 

  Please use this forum to make feature requests:

  SkySafari | Feature Requests

  Thank you for your feedback!