"The Return of Megastar: Megastar 5.0"

What makes a piece of astronomy software great? Functionality? Yes. Features? Yes. User friendliness? Definitely. A continuing commitment by the author to keep upgrading and improving her/his work? For sure. Megastar, the “sky atlas for Windows” is a program that many enthusiastic deep sky observers have grown to love and respect over the ten years it’s been on the street (hard to believe, ain’t it?). I was hooked on the program from the first time I installed it on a computer. I can’t say that I’ve been with Megastar from the first—the original edition on 40+ floppy disks didn’t seem very practical to me—but I’ve been aboard as an enthusiastic supporter since the first CD release. But in recent times I’d begun thinking about replacing Megastar as my primary charting/observing tool. Why? Megastar still fulfilled most of the above characteristics of “good” software. But with the notable exception of our last specification. Megastar had not been updated in a major way since 1997.

For astronomy software—or any kind of software—five years is a very long time. There was no doubt that Megastar 4.0 was beginning to show its age. The author, Emil Bonanno, had continued to issue minor upgrades and enhancements regularly, but nothing that added major functions or that changed the basic look and feel of the program. Which is not to say that I had stopped using Megastar. Far from it. Even today, 1997’s 4.0 is still one of the easiest to use, deepest computer sky atlases (the type of astro-ware we usually refer to as “deep sky programs”) around. It was just that the other big names. Skymap, and The Sky to name two, were beginning to move well past Megastar in the features race.

What was 4.0 lacking? How about images? Nicely plotted charts with scaled symbols for deep sky objects (and isophotes for nebulae) are fine. But sometimes you need to see exactly what a deep sky object looks like. Megastar 4.0 does allow you to use the Realsky CDs, the multi CD set of POSS images, but Realsky is expensive and annoyingly clunky to use. Other recent deep sky programs, including the freeware Cartes du Ciel, allow the user to download DSS/POSS images off the Internet automatically as needed. No CDs to pay for or fool with, and images that are higher in resolution compared to those on the Realsky set. Megastar’s user interface was also a sore point. Very usable for the person used to the program, sure. But Megastar’s original DOS heritage and underpinnings definitely show in a user interface/menu look and structure that diverges from the Windows standard. Plus, frankly, Megastar just didn’t seem as attractive as the other recent programs. That doesn’t make much difference in functionality, but a nicely designed, good looking program is something we all appreciate. Was it time to switch? I thought so. I hated giving up Megastar’s incredible databases, the best in the business, but I decided it was time for something new.

So, did I switch? Yep. But to the NEW Megastar, 5.0. Just as I was contemplating Megastar’s competitors, I received word that Emil was beta-testing a new version of Megastar. No word on when it would be ready, but I decided that it was worth waiting a month or two to see what developed. In due course, I found out that Megastar’s current distributor, Willman-Bell, would be releasing Megastar 5.0 early in June. Did I immediately order a copy? You bet I did, Bunky, after I got a look at the advance publicity outlining 5.0’s new features:

• Updated databases with hundreds of corrections and 80,000 new galaxies in the MAC (Mitchell Anonymous Galaxy Catalog).
• The Tycho 2 stellar database.
• Support for the huge, new USNO A2.0 star database (the successor to the GSC).
• Option to display stars in colors based on their spectral classes.
• New toolbars (many of these), and a better looking user interface that’s still similar enough to the old Megastar to keep veteran users happy.
• 160 customizable hot-key combinations.
• Customizable object symbols.
• More printing options, including option for printing multiple windows on one page.
• Solar system animation and improved planet depictions.
• Ability to rotate fields freely in addition to ability to rotate/flip.
• IMAGES for 78,000 deep sky objects.
• Ability to import DSS/POSS images from Internet.
• Many additional interfaces for goto scopes.

Yeehaw! Sounded great. But how would the reality be? In due time the CD was in my hands (how come everybody can’t ship things as speedily and cheaply as Willman-Bell? Their shipping fee is STILL a measly $1.00.). Once the box was open what was the first thing that struck me? How many recent astronomy programs you’ve purchased have come with a printed manual? Not many, right? Ok, how many have come with a manual that’s a hardcover book with an introduction by Richard Berry? That’s right. Megastar’s new manual is a 150 page book with a nice index and numerous illustrations. I was immediately impressed. But, since you can’t judge a book by its cover or an astronomy program by its docs, I set about to see how easy it was to get this thing installed.

Very easy. Click on the installation program in My Computer to get it started and answer the few questions that it poses and you’re done. It is worth noting, if you’re a previous user, that Megastar 5.0 is a whole new program rather than an update to the old program, and must be installed in a new directory rather than into your existing Megastar 4.0 directory. You can leave Megastar 4.0 in place if you wish, as both can coexist on your hard drive without causing problems. You can choose to place all the information from the CD—the Hubble GSC and the images, for example--on your hard drive or you can leave them on the CD. I strongly suggest loading everything on your hard drive if you have the room, as this speeds up the program’s operation considerably. Once your installation is complete, you can start the program and go about configuring it as you would any other astro program. The manual is clear and the menu structure is easy to decipher, so you shouldn’t have any trouble doing this. If you’re a previous Megastar user, however, and still have the old program on the hard drive, the 5.0 CD contains a utility that will take your location and preference data from 4.0 and send it over to 5.0. You’ll be up and running without having to remember the position of your favorite observing site or re-entering all your eyepiece data!

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Added:  Friday, August 01, 2003
Reviewer:  Rod Mollise
Score:
Related Link:  William Bell (program's homepage)
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Language: eng
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