Take a Tour of our free (but kinda old!) observer & eyepiece software

Dear Observing Friends ~ especially beginners:

My husband rec'd a lot of flak on this ng. some years ago when he
posted information quite often about our "telescope simulator"
program, Eyepiece 2.0. But since we don't sell it now (being a DOS
program, it is FAR too obsolete to charge money for!) but instead give
it away on one of our websites, maybe I can get away with a mention of
it perhaps once a year! (I hope.)

Today we uploaded an illustrated tour of how to use the program in
order to define a telescope system, select an eyepiece, and then
obtain various parameters for viewing double stars or deep sky
objects. It covers many of the screen shots of the menus and
functions, showing the complexity of our Object Visibility Prediction
and a few other functions that we think are rather helpful: such as
the ability to select an eyepiece by asking for:

FOV...
Exit Pupil...
Magnification...
by searching the internal ocular database...

as well as selecting a specific nebular filter. In fact, the other
day we were trying to make a homebrew finderscope out of a surplus
50mm achromat. It took only a few moments to zero in on *exactly* the
right eyepiece choice for it, based on our desired exit pupil & FOV,
being much easier to do in the program than by running the numbers of
a whole bunch of EP's using a pocket calculator.

The Object Visibility Prediction function, developed by Stephen with
some suggestions by Jack B. Marling, does an analysis of many
parameters of the d-s objects chosen from the program databases,
determing from the optical characteristics of the system whether it's
likely to be seen, and if so, approximately how well: in five
categories of quality, from "good" to "bad". If you'd like a bit of
amusement with this, define (say) a little 60mm toy refractor scope
with 0.956" oculars, in a city sky, and then ask for something like
the Horsehead! The program won't mince words about the possibility of
doing THAT observation!

Beginners will find help from the calculation engine in this program,
which tries to weed out user error and give measurements and advice
based on real-world practical optical standards. There are also a few
(now crude-looking) images that try to show the differences between
eye views, and photographs. These graphics are now more than showing
their age, dating from the era of 8-bit tiny VGA monitors.

In addition to the functionality of the software calculator, there are
numerous essays included. Jack Marling contributed one technical
paper on nebular filters, and Kevin Fly Hill gave us permission to
include his interesting paper on dark adaptation.

The main home page for reading about "Eyepiece" (2.0, DOS) and
downloading it is here:
http://home.earthlink.net/~steve_waldee/index.html

The new Tour article we just uploaded is here:
http://home.earthlink.net/~steve_waldee/tour/Eyepiece-tour.htm

Thanks. Good observing!

REGINA,
carrier of the other end of Steve's Dobsonian

.