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08/08/2004 |
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Red Shift 5 Don Bradbury looks at the latest version of a popular PC Planetarium
If you’re into astronomy and you need to know what to look for and where in the night sky, Maris Technology’s latest offering might be just what you are looking for. Red Shift 5, the most recent incarnation of the must-have astronomy software takes you to new heights and indeed new depths. We’ll explain.
The culmination of ten years work, Red Shift now lets you explore the universe in breathtaking detail and with unsurpassed functionality. Get your telescope out tonight by all means but you might decide first to check where in the sidereal heavens to search for that special object. Installation
Not altogether
straightforward on the test PC. A phone call to Support, and then a
4.5MB download had to be endured before the program would run. It
was explained that this was to cater for PCs that were not
AIM-compatible. It has nothing to do with the OS; AIM Ctrls is an
engine component. It’s a shame that couldn’t have been discovered
before release as it would have saved a lot of frustration for some.
Internet activation was another niggle to endure but once completed
the program was up and running. View Earth from the Moon First, set up your location (check sunrise and sunset times to make sure you have that correct) and then do what you will. Transport yourself to the Moon to view the Earth. Check out its properties while you’re there or hitch yourself to a comet and follow its progress at any time past or future. You can also plot 20 million stars, deep space objects, galaxies, quasars, moons, asteroids and more. Red Shift 5 includes the Hipparcos and Tycho-2 stellar catalogues as well as the Hubble Guide Star catalogue and the updated 50,000 asteroid Bowel database. It also has photo galleries, a Sky Diary, and such features as spacecraft orbits, a fabulous zoom facility for detailed looks, a night vision option with screen dimming and reddening, on-screen labels of course, flip view so you can view images as seen through your own telescope, and integrated Open GL technologies, Red Shift 5 lack but little.
All the recently discovered moons of Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus are included, and the program can calculate the positions and simulate the movements of stars, the Milky Way, 70,000 deep space objects, nebulae, star clusters, galaxies and quasars. Red Shift 5 simply has too many features and viewing options to mention them all here. Use the filters wisely (to avoid screen clutter), set object magnitudes to your needs and learn how to search for and select objects to be included in your view. In conclusion For the modest outlay of £29.99, notwithstanding possible frustrations over the install procedure and activation, Red Shift 5 appears to live up to its reputation as a best buy among PC-based planetaria. You’ll need to spend time discovering what it can do including using the direct link to the RedShift web site to get the latest updates but we think you’ll believe the time has been well spent.
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