Starry Night Enthusiast

Rating:
Summary: I'm satisfied... totally.
Review: I know that some people seem to have had a bad experience with Space Holdings, but I have ordered both directly from them and also from Amazon before and was satisfied with both previous transactions. I will concur that they seem to have some internal communication issues and that the people you may talk to on the phone don't seem to have a very good handle on things... at least when you consider that they actually work for the company. It kind of feels like you've called someone's house and their 4yo kid picked up the phone. Trying to get Mommy or Daddy on the phone at that point can be tricky.

While I can't speak to the quality of other similar products (Red Shift, TheSky, etc.), I can say that I have been VERY happy with Starry Night. Having been a Starry Night Backyard user since version 3.0, I can say that it was worth my upgrade to 4.0 and then again to 4.5 (Enthusiast). I am now using 4.5.2 on my Apple TiBook running Mac OS X 10.3.2. The product is satisfactory to me in every way, and really lacks nothing that I use for amateur observation of the sky. I thoroughly enjoy it personally.

Additionally, I enjoy it professionally. I teach astronomy at a public high school with over 1400 students. I see about 130 of those students each year enrolled in astronomy. We use Starry Night Backyard (version 4.0.5) running on Mac OS X (10.2.8) as a part of the curriculum that I have developed. I have been totally satisfied with it as an educator.

Obviously I'm runnning all this on a Mac and the same was true with my version 3.0 (though that was on Mac OS 9). It could be that this product does not run as well on a Windows machine, but that can be said of a great many things. If you decide to get it, though, I would recommend is getting it from Amazon or some other source than directly from Space Holdings. Not only do they charge full retail price for the product, but because they're in Canada, the shipping is outrageous.

Rating:
Summary: Underwhelmed!
Review: Maybe it is because this is the base version but I have mixed feelings about this program. I loaded it into my laptop and at first I thought that was neat since I had the sky at my fingertips, it shows the planets, constellations, many stars. Just punch in your location and date and there is the sky duplicated on the laptop. And I like a number of features. Fast forward and turn the sun on and off, sun comes up and goes down. It has lots of information - all neat.

But then when I got out the telescope I went for a couple of books. My general feeling is that yes it is neat but maybe just a toy. So when I got a new computer I did not bother transferring the program. More of a toy, not a great tool and like all toys you lose interest fast. For the serious astronomer or telescope user just use a Miller Planisphere - it is the sky on a 10" circular disc with a sliding cover elliptical hole. You rotate the cover to the date and time and it shows the shy through the open elliptical hole. That gives a similar level of detail. For more information - go to a reference book. Maybe the program has some appeal in teaching where the novelty factor might generate or keep the interest of the students.

Jack in Toronto

Rating:
Summary: Incredible program!
Review: My husband and my two sons have been hunched over the computer for days, leaping up to go outside and look at the sky. Each time they come in, one of them says, "What a cool program!" before going back to the computer. My 12 year old, who is grounded at the moment, hasn't even complained about being limited to "smart games" on the computer because this is one of the programs he's allowed to use. They're all Astronomy enthusiasts anyway - the sort who will set the alarm for 3am to go out and see a comet. I couldn't say if the software would only appeal to that type. But I wish you could see these guys! They're competing with each other to see if they can come up with yet another fact or software functionality that will out-do what the others have found. They're already talking about getting the advanced version of the program - but this one will take them quite a ways, so there isn't any hurry. I just wish I could rate it more than five stars!

Rating:
Summary: Starry Night Enthusiast
Review: Not what I was looking for. Limiting magnitude would not allow the display of faint and deep space objects in a wide sky view. When I tried to return the software (web site guarantees 100% satisfaction or your money back) the company wouldn't take it back. They also said I couldn't sell the program because I had agreed to their stipulations when I loaded the program. If you want anything more than a simple astronomy program for naked eye observing, go with Red Shift. It gives you better control overall, and the parent company for Starry Night isn't at all customer friendly. I feel like I was taken.

Rating:
Summary: Best introduction to astronomy
Review: Starry Night makes the sky look so real that its almost like being outside. By far the most realistic astronomy program i have used. All the planets have high resolution images and there are over 100 color images of deepsky objects. If you want more objects you can get their PlusPak #2 which adds 11 000 more images to the sky. You also get a DVD with about 2 hours of movies, an astronomy book! and users guide. Its so much fun to use this software! Now i need a telescope...

Rating:
Summary: Don't buy from Space Holdings
Review: This product crashed my machine, which is a new Dell Inspiron laptop running Windows XP. There customer service is dismal. After four emails and no response, I returned the product and stopped the payment on my credit card, indicating that it was fraudulently represented as a functional product. They have the worst customer support I've ever experienced. Buy something else.