Sky Tools 2 - Initial Impressions - Long

From: Mark Smith (emarksmi_at_san.rr.com)
Date: 01/11/05 

Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 07:32:50 GMT

All,

After all of the discussion of Sky Tools 2 and my decision to buy, I
thought I'd give you my initial impressions. Keep in mind that my
total experience with the program is about 2 hours. I'm fairly new to
astronomy, but an expert computer user.

1. Customer Service and Packaging: I ordered the program and the
Real Time add on sometime after midnight on Friday Morning. Their web
ordering system is simplistic by modern standards, but is clear and
easy to use. They promise next business day after order confirmation
delivery for orders in the US and charge $6 for shipping. Since
postage was $3.85, they certainly aren't cheating me there. The
package arrived this afternoon and contained a CD in an attractive
jewel case and an invoice. The invoice had the activation code for
the add on and the Registraton Number for the program was on the
inside of the jewel case.

2. Installation: For the most part, standard windows fare. I was a
bit disappointed that there wasn't an option to do a full install from
the installation menu. The initial installation is a minimal one (11
mb) and you must choose to install the rest when you run the program
for the first time. There was a window during installation that told
you how to do this, but I skimmed over it guessing that it would be
obvious when I started the program. Well, it wasn't obvious to me. I
figured it out, but it required digging into the HDD and reading the
appropriate readme file. The program took the Add On registration at
the first login and the add on worked perfectly.

3. Setup:

   a. Observing Lists: Only 3 observing lists come pre-loaded and I
wanted more. Heck, that's what I bought the program for! I quickly
figured out how I should accomplish importing more observing lists but
couldn't get anywhere. There were no error messages, just no
observing lists. I checked for the appropriate URL, but still
nothing. A bit frustrated, I guessed maybe I needed to update the
program and tried that. Still nothing. It wasn't until I tried to
download the comet information that I finally found a screen that told
me that it couldn't find the server. Neither of the other screens had
indicated any problem other than not giving me what I wanted. I have
both a Hardware Firewall and am running a custom version of Norton
Internet Security. After termporarily disabling the NIS, all the
updates worked perfectly.

     Which leads me to my one major gripe with the program so far:
You can't select lists of objects for action. I wanted to download a
dozen or so lists from the website but I couldn't highlight the bunch
of them and say "Let her rip!" I had to import them one at a time
and, after each import, the list reset to the top! Not being able to
select lists of objects is not limited to this screen. I noticed it
throughout the program, but I'll get there in a minute.

  b. Location/Telescope/Observer: This is a model for how it should
be done. You simply click on one of these and add or edit to your
heart's content. The units for elavation, aperature, etc. change
between english and metric units with a click of a mouse. Entry is
easy.

  c. Data Sorting: This is overall quite nice. You simply select a
list and some basic parameters and off you go. There didn't seem to
be an option for "no lists" (in other words, pull up everything), but
I think I simply haven't found it yet. There are some powerful search
functions that I didn't play with. Although the interface was
intuitive, including setting magnitude limits, there was a "viewing
time" setting that was, by default, all day (noon to noon). I knew
there had to be a way to set this to something different, but couldn't
find it for the life of me. Finally, I delved into the online help.
It was intuitive and quite nicely context sensitive. I quickly found
that you set this by dragging some little red bars to bracket the time
you wanted. Easy and farily effective, but I ende up with them set
from 6:03pm to 12:09 am. While I like the bar dragging, it would have
been very nice to have been able to click on the time and enter it
directly.

  d. The Log: I entered a few items into the log. Very nice with
some cute shortcuts that make things quick and easy. Since this is
one of the primary reasons for buying the program, the log function
was important to me and didn't disappoint. The only strange "feature"
is that when trying to change the time when entering past
observations, the time change never seemed to take no matter how many
different ways of entering it I tried. Another trip to the online
help and I learned I had to hit "enter". Silly me! I thought the
"OK" button at the bottom would have been enough. Still the program
was very clear and it does work as the book says it should.

4. Playing Around: The star chart views are fun and easy to
navigate. Some thought went into designing them as you can change
their positions and sizes very easily. The lists were fun. They
didn't work quite the way I expected, but that was OK. I have a
feeling that I'll end up building my own "Observing Projects" list and
working primarily from there. It doesn't really matter because there
is incredible flexibility built in. I like the graphical view of the
objects at the top of the screen. In real time mode, that should be
great. I'm not entirely sure how much use this will be in the field
though as there was entirely too much white and other bright colors on
the screen while in Night Vision Mode (especially on the star chart
screen). If there are other observers around, you are definitely
going to need a red film over the screen.

My overall impression was very favorable, although you probably can't
tell from the above. The program looks like it will do exactly what I
wanted it to do and a bit more. For all of my "nits" above, there
were very few problems that I think will affect the way I use the
program. So, my first impressions are:

Negative:
Serious:
Cannot select several items from a list for action (such as moving or
importing)
Night Vision Mode Lacking.
Lack of feedback when some operations fail

Nits:
Cannot change filter time by clicking on the numbers
I really should be able to just hit OK when changing the time
An option for a full install would be nice.

Positive:
The list capability is...well...incredible.
The logging capability is exactly what an observer would want.
Excellent search buttons.
Interface, while not standard Windows Fare, is exactly what is
required and works very well.
Customability!!! You could use thie program in a vast number of ways
depending on your wants/needs.

To be Explored:
Well, an awful lot. I'll post another review down the road.

Clear, Dark Skies

Mark

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