User`s guide

Appearance of the Sky 45
Planet Display Options
Starry Night gives you many options for
the display of our Sun and its planets and
moons. A variety of guides are also
available to give you perspective.
At a 100° field of view, planets are
displayed like stars, which is how they
appear to us from Earth’s surface. As you
get closer to a planet (by zooming in on
the planet or by changing your location)
you begin to see the disc image and any
phase information.
Starry Night depicts the planets using the
latest images from NASA and other space
agencies. Unfortunately, we have not yet
been able to fully image all of the objects
in our solar system. Where little or no data
is available, Starry Night uses the time-
honored tradition of deploying space
artists to create the surfaces of distant
worlds as seen from space, such as Pluto,
Charon, and Saturn’s moon Phoebe.
Several of the planet images in Starry
Night were created or enhanced by
astronomy enthusiasts.
Choose Help->Image Credits from the
menu to see thumbnails and credits for the
planet surface images and the images of
deep space objects.
Earth/Moon Shadow Outlines: Earth and
the Moon cast shadows upon one another
in certain alignments with the sun. The
two circles of this target represent the
limits of the umbral and penumbral
shadows projected out at the Earth/Moon
distance. The umbral shadow encloses the
area experiencing a total eclipse, while the
penumbral shadow encloses the area
experiencing a partial eclipse. This feature
is useful when watching a solar eclipse
from the Moon — you can see the Moon’s
shadow approaching Earth before it
actually casts its shadow upon Earth.
Dark Side: For more realistic and exciting
viewing, you can choose to display the
dark sides of planets. The slider lets you
control the sharpness of the transition
between the dark and lit side.
Specular Reflection: This feature is only
available with OpenGL graphics cards. It
realistically models the Sun’s glare.