Sky & Telescope - August 2021 - 70

S&T Test Report
to pick individual
objects, shift+click
to choose groups of
sequential objects, or
Ctrl+click to highlight
each in a noncontiguous
group. It
was easy to select all
the Messiers, but now
what?
The Localize tab in the observing-plan
windows allows objects shown in the plan to
be tailored for a particular time and for the
positions of the objects.
appears on the desktop. It can be given
a name and a detailed description if
desired (useful when sharing plans with
other users).
You populate the new plan with
objects by opening a Search Document,
a fancy name for the software's search
engine. Clicking on one of the Search
Document icons in the toolbar - such
as the galaxy icon for deep-sky objects
- allows you to sort that database. A
dropdown next to the deep-sky Search
Document icon accesses specifi c deepsky
catalogs.
With the Search Document onscreen
(it's in a tab next to the one containing
the new plan), the database can
be searched by its catalog designation
(number), magnitude, and numerous
other parameters. As a test, I decided to
build a plan consisting of the Messier
objects. The program retrieved all 110
Messiers in about two seconds.
As soon as objects appear in the
Search Document, you can select the
ones of interest
with a left click
Numerous data
columns are available
for display in
an observing plan.
Deep Sky Planner
uses ASCOM
drivers for telescope
control. Users can
download the drivers
for their specifi c
telescope from the
ASCOM website at
ascom-standards.
org.
70 AUGUST 2021 * SKY & TELESCOPE
That's where I ran into trouble. In
the previous version of the program,
objects were added to a plan by placing
it and the Search Document on the
screen at the same time and dragging
and dropping objects into the plan.
However, there was no obvious way
to do that with DSP 8. The " Window "
command was missing from the menu
bar, so there was no way to tile two
documents onscreen. I also didn't see
any copy-and-paste commands that
would allow objects to be transferred
that way. I was stumped.
Then I recalled the best way to get
help with Deep Sky Planner is the excellent
instructional videos on the program's
website. Viewing the one on plan
creation clued me in. Due to changes
in Windows 10, multiple documents in
multiple windows are no longer supported.
The way to move objects from
the Search Document is by copying with
the usual keyboard shortcut, Ctrl+C, and
pasting them into the plan with Ctrl+V.
That worked well, and I soon had the
Messier objects in my new plan.
With the plan composed, it was time
to enter a date and time of interest by
visiting the Localize tab on the Plan
window. Localize allows the program to
calculate the rise, set, and transit times
for objects shown in the plan. Using it
in concert with the Altitude tab enables
objects in a certain altitude range and
visible at a specifi c time to be displayed.
I set Localize for " now, " altitude for
30 degrees minimum and 90 degrees
maximum, and clicked the Run button
in the Plan window. The list went from
110 objects to 18.
What if you don't see enough information
or the desired information on
plan objects? Columns can be hidden
or displayed with the Show Columns
button on the plan screen. There's an
extensive list of data columns that can
be enabled. The order of the columns
is altered by dragging and dropping
column titles.
Star Charts
Setting up a planetarium program to
work with DSP 8 is done with the Star
Charts selection in the Options menu.
After choosing a planetarium program
from a list that includes most of the
popular ones, an Edit button allows
some customization. That includes
the size of the chart fi eld shown and
whether DSP 8 should automatically
minimize itself when a chart is displayed.
Once Stellarium was set up,
choosing Star Chart on an object's
right-click context menu quickly moved
the chart to my target object.
In addition to star charts, another
function I fi nd useful is having images
http://www.ascom-standards.org http://www.ascom-standards.org
Sky & Telescope - August 2021

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