I have been using the excellent Skychart ( Cartes Du Ciel) for many years. This program is free to download.
It is an Astronomy program that can be used to print out sky maps of stars, etc. for use when outside with your telescope, looking for various astronomy objects such as stars, planets, Galaxies etc.
Skychart is also excellent to use on your computer, to just to see when an night sky object is visible from your location. Skychart can also be used to operate your GoTo telescope, to point at the sky object you are interested in viewing.
https://www.ap-i.net/skychart/en/start This is the main webpage to download the program. There are also additional Map Catalogues that can be downloaded to get more stars displayed and more information on the sky objects.
This is the Download webpage, https://www.ap-i.net/skychart/en/download For Linux there is an additional file, libpasastro, that needs to be downloaded. The Skychart software program will complain, during installation, if this file is not found, and will not install.
I was not successful in getting the file libpasastro, to be found by the Skychart install. I downloaded libpasastro and it is a compressed file which I then extracted in my computer Download folder. The Skychart install was unable to find the libpasastro file and complained and would not install. :-(
I found this PPA for the libpasastro and after installing the PPA, then the Skychart install found linpasastro and proceeded to install the Skychart program.
https://launchpad.net/~pch/+archive/ubuntu/ppa-skychart
Looks as if the Windows install is more straightforward. Can you download extra stuff to improve over the basic, or does the initial download cover most things?
Thanks for the info, Bill. I'll check out later. Have you been comet watching lately? I wish I knew where my binoculars were.
I'm surprised they don't have it set up better. This would be an ideal situation for using a flatpak. It would have everything you need in it.
There are additional catalogues that you can download for the fainter stars and more sky objects, but the main download by itself, would cover most things.
Quote from: buster on July 28, 2020, 10:10:09 AM
Looks as if the Windows install is more straightforward. Can you download extra stuff to improve over the basic, or does the initial download cover most things?
I have been looking for the current comet, Neowise, for the last couple of weeks and I finally was able to view it 2 times with my Celestron 20 X 70 binoculars. The sky conditions were not the best and the mosquitoes were bad, but it was a very impressive sight, with a very long tail, when viewed through my binoculars. I was unable get my DSLR camera to take some pictures, because I am not used to taking night sky images, with it. :-(
Quote from: Jason Wallwork on July 28, 2020, 01:13:27 PM
Thanks for the info, Bill. I'll check out later. Have you been comet watching lately? I wish I knew where my binoculars were.
I'm surprised they don't have it set up better. This would be an ideal situation for using a flatpak. It would have everything you need in it.
Pretty cool that you got to see it. I didn't try to view it as with the naked eye, it's probably not much to see other than a dot. I'm sure there will be other comets though but probably not this close in my lifetime.
Usually it is around 10 years between appearances of really bright comets , that are visible without the use of binoculars or telescopes. Sometimes the visible comets are only visible from the southern hemisphere.
Comets are frequently in the night sky but you would need a fairly large telescope, to see them.
https://www.space.com/where-have-the-bright-comets-gone.html