User`s guide

24 Starry Night User’s Guide
the time at which the Moon is highest in
the sky.
Identifying Objects In The Sky
If you point the cursor at any object shown
onscreen, information about the object will
automatically appear. This is Starry
Night’s
Heads-Up Display (HUD).
Displayed are the object’s name, the
constellation it is in, and its distance (if
known) from Earth. This makes it easy to
identify any of the points of light
displayed onscreen.
In Starry Night Enthusiast, Pro and Pro
Plus you can choose which information
fields are displayed when you point the
cursor at an object. See
“Heads-Up Display (HUD) Options
” on
page 62 for more details.
Labeling Objects
The Heads-Up Display is great for finding
out what a specific object is, but it’s not
much help if you want a quick overview of
all of the brighter objects onscreen. The
best way to quickly identify all bright
objects is to choose
Labels->Show All Labels from the menu
(in Starry Night CSAP press the “L”
keyboard key). This labels the brightest
objects in each category (stars,
constellations, planets, deep space
objects). You can turn these labels off
again by choosing
Labels->Hide All Labels or by pressing
the “L” keyboard key.
Starry Night Enthusiast, Pro and Pro Plus
offers much more precise control over
object labels. You can label only certain
types of objects, increase/decrease the
number of labels, or label only the objects
that you select. See “Labeling Celestial
Objects” on page 39 for more information.
Displaying Constellation Figures
For thousands of years, stargazers have
joined the brighter stars together into
patterns that we call constellations.
Astronomers currently recognize 88
constellations, which together cover the
entire sky. Knowing which constellation
an object is in is the first step to finding the
object.
You can turn on the stick figures for the
constellations by choosing
View->Constellations->Astronomical
from the main menu (in Starry Night
CSAP press the “K” keyboard key).
Choosing this option again will remove
the figures. Use the Labels menu in Starry
Night Enthusiast, Pro and Pro Plus to turn
on/off the constellation labels.