User`s guide

148 Starry Night User’s Guide
menu by adding your own files or
modifying the existing files. See
“Customizing the Favourites Menu
” on
page 177 for instructions.
Adding notes to Starry Night Files
See “Adding notes to files
” on page 177
for more information on adding
descriptive notes to your Starry Night
files.
Creating Files - An Example
This example teaches you how to use the
File menu to save, open and modify files.
You will create a file of the August 11,
1999 solar eclipse.
1 Restore Starry Night’s default
settings by choosing
Options->Presets->Default
.
2 Open the Viewing Location dialog box
by choosing
Options->Viewing Location
from the menu
3Click the
List tab and select Munich,
Germany, from the list of cities.Click the
Set Location button to close the Viewing
Location dialog box. The toolbar should
now list Munich as your current location.
4 Set the time to 12:32:00 PM, and the
date to August 11, 1999, then stop time
flow. Ensure that Daylight Saving Time is
on.
5Open the
Find pane and clear the text-
box to reveal the list of solar system
objects.
6 Double-click on the Sun’s name in the
Find pane to centre and lock on it. The
Sun should now be in the centre of your
view, with the Moon almost directly in front
of it, but not quite. The sky should still be
bright (if you had previously turned day-
light off, turn it back on now).
7 Set your time step to a discrete value of
3 seconds in the toolbar.
You now have Starry Night set up
perfectly to watch the solar eclipse.
8 To save your work, select File->Save.
Name the file
“
Eclipse from Munich” and save it
in the directory of your choice. Once you
have saved the file, the main Starry Night
window should now be called “Starry
Night-Eclipse from Munich”, not
“Starry Night
-Untitled”.
You will now watch the eclipse.
9 Press the “Forward” button in the time
mode controls in the toolbar. As time flows
forward, the sky will gradually begin to get
darker. The first object which you will see
is Venus, to the bottom left of the Sun. At
about 12:38, the sky will go completely
dark and all the stars will come out. This
lasts only a few minutes before the sky
gradually becomes light again. At about
12:42, stop the flow of time by pressing
the “Stop” button on the toolbar.
10 Close the file by selecting
File->Close.
Select
Don’t Save in the window which
asks if you want to save changes. On
Windows, this will also exit Starry Night.
11 Restart Starry Night. After it opens, you
should be at your home location at the cur-
rent time.
12 Select
File->Open and choose
“
Eclipse from Munich” from the
dialog box that opens and prompts you to
select a file. Again you are in Munich,
Germany at 12:32, looking at the Sun, in
the best spot to watch the eclipse. You can
press the “Forward” button on the toolbar
to watch it again, if you like.