User`s guide

122 Starry Night User’s Guide
Tip: You can automatically graph the
elongation of a planet’s moons, by
choosing Graph Elongation Of Moons
from the planet’s contextual menu.
Angular Size: Plots the angular size of the
object in the sky. This will vary
considerably for objects in our solar
system. For example, Venus appears much
larger when it is on the same side of the
Sun as Earth is.
Time Range: You can change the
horizontal time scale of the Graph
by selecting any of the time range options
in the Graph’s contextual menu or by
using the time increment buttons in the
upper left corner of the Graph. A scale of
24 hours is helpful when planning a night
of observing, while a larger time scale is
useful to see phenomena such as the
change in an object’s apparent magnitude.
Graph Options: Clicking this option in the
Graph contextual menu opens a dialog box
with several more options.
You can shade the area underneath an
object’s line on the Graph by checking
“Fill in”. You can turn daylight on/off on
the Graph. Turning daylight on makes it
easier to find the best time to view an
object. You can also choose to turn off the
grid that marks the vertical divisions on
the Graph.
Removing Objects: The list of objects
being graphed are shown to the right of the
Graph. To remove an object from the
graph, right click on the object’s name in
this list (Ctrl-Click on the Mac) and select
Stop Graphing.
Ephemeris Generator
You’ll always know where and when to
look with Starry Night’s built-in ephemeris
generator. It’s a handy observational aid
that creates a table of positional data for
any object over a specified time span and
interval. You can then export the generated
values to a text file and print them out.
To generate an ephemeris table for any
object, right-click on it (Ctrl-click on a
Macintosh) and select Generate Ephe-
merides from the objects contextual
menu.