Sky X is still very, very poor for the number of catalogs of objects;

Barnard?  Collinder? King? Stock? Berkeley?

van den Bergh? Czernik? Dolidze? Sh2 ?  Basel? Tombaugh?

Objects from these catalogs are found from page 51 to page 71 in the book 'The Night Sky Observers Guide' , but NOT in the SkyX!!

With Sky6 and now also with SkyX I must still use this book, Uranometria 2000.0, Astro-planner and the web to find visual objects, write down the RA and DEC numbers and ONLY use SkyX (currently Sky6) for pointing my Paramount to these points.

WAKE-UP Bisque! spent some time to ad ALL catalogs, including a open forum to ad catalogs from other users like in Astro Planner.

Garret (gert)  van der Veen, The Netherlands

Hooray!!!

I've been looking forward with great anticipation to this release and am downloading my upgrade to TheSkyX Pro as I type this.

As somebody who writes software for a living, I know just how hard it is to get everything to come together for a release. I take my hat off to Software Bisque for producing simultaneous releases for Windows and Mac. And all the add-ons, upgrade options, etc.Even Apple, with all their huge resources have trouble releasing more than one product at a time :-)

I've been using TheSkyX for almost a year now and am really grateful that your wonderful software has enabled me to control my telescope and CCD and take images that I truly never imagined possible. So, while other, perhaps more experienced users, may wish to criticise, personally I'm very excited by this new release.

One last thing. I think SB's customer support is superb - it must be a full-time job just monitoring and replying to all the technical and sales-related queries on the support message board.

So, a BIG congratulations and Thank You to the SB team on the release of TheSkyX. I hope you can sit back now and watch as the $$$'s pour in!

Russell (London, UK)

Where can I find a concise comparison of features between TheSkyX Serious Astronomer Edition and the Professional Edition? What does PE have/do that SAE doesn't?

I'm interessted in a comparisation of these two versions, too.

Patric

Well ...I'm the one who's sleeping...because I still can't find those objects in the info site for the skyX...

Its like Photoshop; tons of possibilities, but never know how to do until you see a tutorial.

Gert,

Go to Input->Database Manager and under Sky Databases you will find Optional Sky databases that include many of those you mentioned and many many more.  Check the box next to the ones you want to turn on.

A *Terrific* feature is you can create your own sky databases.  Input->Create SKy Database will bring up a dialog that lets you inport text files and create databases.  I've created several databases for my own use--known transiting exoplanets, targets I want to image, targets I have imaged, etc...

It would be nice to have a repository of user created databases hosted somewhere to more easily share.  Then others may add in some of the more obscure databases Bisque may have left out or people can more easily share databases of objects of value for public outreach or observing campaigns.  Importing more data formats would be helpful as well--imagine if the AAVSO alert lists could be directly imported into The SKY!  Maybe they can?  I haven't found all the bells and whistles yet either ;)

Brian

I have a quick question...  in my current use model, I plan my observing sessions in SkyTools 3, and then cotrol my mount by connecting SkyTools 3 through TheSky6 Pro/Tpoint with "The Sky-controlled Telescope" in SkyTools' ASCOM chooser dialog box.  Should that still work with TheSkyX Pro/TPoint?

James

Nice list of "what's new" with the Professional version but I cannot find a list of "what's new" over all.  The "what's new" list for Professional says includes all the standard features from TheSkyX Serious Astronomer Edition, plus the following additional features but clicking the link does not take you to a "what's new" page for Standard or Serious Observer.  I have a very limited budget so am looking to justify upgrading my Sky 6 Professional to Sky X Professional.  It would be nice if there was a trial version to play with to see the differences.

Great am downloading my upgrade to TheSkyX Pro as I type this. Can't wait to test it out.

Yes. Would love to see some more tutorials on this also? Any chance of that down the line?

I thought I'd drop a note here about last weekend's Midwest Astro Imaging Conference held near Chicago. SB sent Richard Wright, one of the developers of SkyX, to give a presentation of the new software and its features. I have to say Richard is an excellent speaker and the combination of his technical expertise and sense of humor made his presentation one of the best at the conference. Thanks Richard!

Just upgraded from serious.... so far so good.... it looks GREAT.  Looking forward to trying out the new ASCOM driver with it.  Anyway, stupid question.... how to get the north pole to show up.  I had it working with serious....  must be late :}

Haven't heard from anyone on how to display the NCP in SkyX pro... maybe it wasn't a stupid question :)

Also, may just be my computer... using Vista 64 with 8gig of RAM and a graphics rating of 5.9, but the chart refresh after a context menu is displayed on the chart, seems very slow.  I'll play more and see if I can track it down.

I have TheSky6 and am considering upgrading to the TheSkyX Pro. This may be a dumb question, but will TheSkyX for Windows support telescope control of a Paramount ME? I've been scanning the user guide and (thus far) have only seen a reference to the Mac version of TheSkyX for telescope control. If the Paramount ME is controllable in the Windows version also, then I plan to make the upgrade. Please let me know.

Thanks,

Paul