Recent News

September 2nd, 2005

Wow, almost a year since my last update.  I kind of stopped working on My Skies in June as the summer approached and I started riding my bike a whole lot more.  The screenshots I have posted right now are quite a bit out of date... I will post some more.

I have started playing around with adding a forum to this website.  Will allow for some conversations for users to happen.

I also started a new project a few weeks ago I'm calling "Scope++".  It's a tight little C++/Win32 app that aids you in getting the best performance possible out of your telescope.  It currently will produce histograms, cross-section plots, do radial determination of objects on screen, and track and trend locations of objects on the screen.

November 2nd, 2004

Well people, just an update on that eclipse that happened here on the 27th.  My program was seven hours short on predicting the eclipse.  I didn't think that was too bad, but I'll be determining why it was off (most likely date-time conversions).  Expect some more screenshots soon as I have dramatically changed the look of the program for the equipment and location settings.

September 27th, 2004

Update pic of equipment in the screenshots 'cause I changed it again.  :-)  I'm also disappointed that the Canadian team decided to postpone their launch.  It was supposed to be October 2nd, 2004 from Kindersley Saskatchewan... but they delayed.  Oh well... I was looking forward to heading out there to watch it this weekend.

September 13th, 2004

I updated the screenshots to show some of the progress I've made since May.  Not too much visual progress has been made, but I have laid down a lot of good communications framework, and have some applications in the work for testing the accuracy and precision of the astronomical libraries I have created.

As an aside, here is some information on the catalogs I have been using to populate the database in My Skies.  I've been downloading these catalogs from ftp://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr.

May 8th, 2004

Well, here I sit in my cozy apartment, enjoying the fresh air blowing in from my balcony, and the softened light from the sun as it tries to shine through the overcast sky.  I have the last instalment of the "Saturn V Quarterly Management Reports" playing in the background.  It's neat stuff, but pretty dry.

I think I've standardized on the main feature sets for the program.  I've categorized them as such:

1. Sky Map
   The Sky Map shows a real-time display of the star positions in the sky.  The whole sky is shown.  The official 88 constellations are traced and shown, as well as their boundaries.  The planets are also plotted on the map (along with prediction lines for the next few hours).  Lots of TODOs here:  deep sky objects (galaxies and nebulas), comets,  the moon and its phase, the sun, and zodiac identification are a few items that will show up on this view.
2. Almanac
3. Displays the rise/transit/set times for the planets, the sun, and the moon.  You can pick the time range you would like to show.  The TODOs here mostly involve giving it a more professional look.
4. Location & Time
5. I'm dropping the night-time light pollution map as it exists, and replacing it with an atlas-type view that allows you to place your position and time of day.  You'll be able to synchronize with GPS systems for position and time, use the current PC time, use the telescope data, or force your own values.  I found some info on the 'net for predicting light pollutions given proximity to cities, so I may go to that approach instead of using the other data.  They seem to reasonably agree with each other.
6. Telescope
7. This will let you set up what type of telescope you are talking to, what eyepieces you are using, what the current telescope information is, etc.  Not too complicated, but it would be nice to get a hold of a Celestron scope computer so that I can support more than just Meade scopes.
8. Orrery
9. Just something to throw in 'cause I think the algorithmic layer I've developed for the planetary motions will support it.  It would be nice to show the planets, their major moons, as well as vectors that point to Earth, along with their illumination to illustrate the phase of the planets (especially Venus and the Moon)  as we look at them any given night.
10. Catalog
11. The database-type look into the data loaded into the system.  I want to give people the ultimate ability to create their own catalogs, search, and cross-reference data.  This is where the ability to upload recent data on comets and satellites will be done.

April 12th, 2004

I have officially deemed myself a photoshop guru after labouring away at trying to come up with some sort of logo for My Skies.  I came up with the one in the top-left corner.  What do you think?  To see the other ones I was thinking of, click here.

April 6th, 2004

This web-site came into existence.  It is the main portal for the software now entitled "My Skies".

• Ü Real-Time Sky Maps for any time and location.
• Ü Night-Time Light Pollution Index for any observing location.
• Ü Sky Almanac for any time and location.
• Ü Integration with most Meade GOTO scopes.
• Ü Integration with any NEMA compliant GPS receiver.
• Ü View, collect, and stack webcam images from one easy-to-use interface.
• Ü Compare simulated eyepiece views to real views..
• Ü Use telescope alignment queues.
  Ü Run in night-time mode to save night-vision.
• Ü Available in English/French/Spanish/German.