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1995-10-01
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"THE DIGITAL UNIVERSE"
Astronomy Software for the Amiga Computer
1995/09/23
PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
-------------------
"The Digital Universe" is a complete astronomy program for the amateur
or professional observer. It combines the advantages of traditional
"planetarium" programs with a massive hypertext multimedia encyclopedia
to create an effective tool which assists the user in observing and
learning about the heavens. 50,000 lines of code, more than 700 pages
of hypertext, and thousands of man-hours have gone into this product to
make it the most complete program of its class. The software would not
have been possible without the generous assistance of countless
individuals from the Canadian Space Agency, the National Research
Council of Canada, NASA, JPL, NORAD, the European Space Agency, the
Bureau des Longitudes, the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, the
Russian Academy of Sciences, and several other organizations worldwide.
Until October 31, 1995, Syzygy Research & Technology Ltd. will supply
"The Digital Universe" at a special introductory offer. See "Ordering
Information" below for details.
PRODUCT UNVEILING
-----------------
"The Digital Universe" was first unveiled at the September 20, 1995
meeting of the Amiga Users of Calgary (AMUC) to an overwhelming
response. More than 1/3 of the attendees purchased a copy of the
software immediately after the presentation, and several orders are still
expected to come in. Some of the unsolicited comments made by members
include:
"This is the best piece of Amiga software which has come out in a
long time"
"This program 'blows away' all other astronomy programs I've ever
seen - not just on the Amiga, but on the IBM and Macintosh as well"
There are actually two packages available - "The Digital Universe"
software and user manual, as well as a printed version of the hypertext
encyclopedia. See "Ordering Information" below for pricing information.
PRODUCT FEATURES
----------------
The following features by no means summarize all the things which
the software is capable of. Due to space considerations, only the
major features can be summarized here.
- The following databases are integrated into the software:
1. Yale Bright Star (YBS) Catalogue of 9110 stars.
2. Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) Catalogue of over
250,000 stars.
3. Messier's Catalogue of 110 deep sky objects (galaxies,
nebulae, and clusters).
4. Sky & Telescope's NGC 2000.0 Catalogue of 13,226 deep sky
objects.
5. Tom Lorenzin's "1000+" database of observing comments for
over 2000 objects.
6. Jost Jahn's comet database containing 2298 cometary orbits.
7. Jost Jahn's minor planet database containing orbital
information for thousands of asteroids.
8. Ted Molczan's and T. S. Kelso's orbital information for
approximately 900 Earth-orbiting satellites.
- The software can generate accurate views of the night sky for any date
from 100,000 BC to 100,000 AD.
- The package includes over 700 pages of hypertext, including an
introduction to astronomy, dictionary of terms, biographies of famous
people, celestial object descriptions, and summaries of every
interplanetary spacecraft launched to date.
- More than 250 pictures are linked into the hypertext encyclopedia.
They include images of all the planets, most of their satellites, all
of the Messier objects, some NGC objects, and many miscellaneous
images. A few audio clips are incorporated as well.
- A context-sensitive help system, linked into the online encyclopedia,
is integrated into the software.
- The user can select whether or not they want to consider effects such
as precession, proper motion, nutation, aberration, or refraction.
- "The Digital Universe" uses the latest analytic theories of motion for
the planets (VSOP87) and their satellites, resulting in typical
accuracies of better than 1 arcsecond (1/3600th of a degree).
- The current analytic theory of motion for the moon (ELP2000-85) has
been extended to improve its accuracy even further for times within
a few hundred years of the present. The extension was done specifically
for "The Digital Universe".
- NORAD's SGP4 model of orbital motion is used to accurately predict
the apparent positions and movement of Earth-orbiting satellites.
"The Digital Universe" can work with standard "2-line" orbit files.
Hundreds of satellites are included with the software, and information
is provided to explain how to obtain future data sets as new
satellites are launched and older orbits decay.
- Unlike many other astronomy programs which only consider the four
brightest satellites of Jupiter, "The Digital Universe" accurately
computes orbits for the moons of:
Earth: Our Moon
Mars: Phobos and Deimos
Jupiter: Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, Amalthea, and Thebe
Saturn: Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Dione, Rhea, Titan, Hyperion,
Iapetus, Phoebe, Telesto, Calypso, and Helene
Uranus: Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon
Neptune: Triton and Nereid
Pluto: Charon
When the software is zoomed in sufficiently to the planet of
interest, the moons are rendered in their proper positions.
- When zoomed in to most planets and satellites, the object's
orientation and phase is determined and a latitude/longitude grid
superimposed if the user desires. Maps of Venus, the Moon, Mars,
Jupiter, and Saturn are incorporated into the software to generate
accurate renditions of the appearance of these objects. The ring
systems of Saturn and Uranus are rendered.
- Supports the Amiga preferences printer. Plots of star charts, etc.
are far more than a simple screen dump. The maximum resolution of
the printer is used for outstanding clarity.
- The user can enter his or her own horizon, if desired. Horizons for
multiple observing sites can be configured.
- The user can select their location from a list of over 1000 cities,
or enter their latitude, longitude, and altitude above sea level
manually if higher accuracy is desired.
- Completely configurable IFF animations can be generated. To mention
just two examples from the infinite number of possibilities, you
can see how stars move and constellations distort over centuries, or
view how Saturn's rings change their orientation and appearance over
time. "The Digital Universe" can also save screen snapshots as ILBMs.
- A report generation feature lets you choose between a wide variety
of data and customize tabular reports. They may either be printed
or saved to disk.
- Provided that you have sufficient chip memory, the screen upon which
"The Digital Universe" runs can be of any size. If the screen is
larger that can fit on the monitor, you can scroll around simply by
moving your mouse to the edge of the visible area. A screenmode
requester is provided to allow users to specify their particular
monitor.
- All development was done entirely on Amiga. It is not a port from
the IBM or Macintosh world. As a result, the software closely
adheres to the Amiga style guidelines and behaves in the manner you
would expect from Amiga software.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
-------------------
The software will run on any Amiga with Workbench 2.04 or greater, at
least 3 megabytes of memory, and a minimum of 11 megabytes of hard drive
space (17 megabytes of hard drive space is required for a full
installation). Due to the extremely calculation-intensive nature of
this software, an accelerated Amiga and math chip (FPU) is strongly
recommended, though not required.
ORDERING INFORMATION
--------------------
The introductory prices of "The Digital Universe" software and printed
encyclopedia can be found in the following table. All prices include
shipping and handling, and Canadian prices include 7% GST. Note that
the prices for Canadian orders are quoted in Canadian dollars, whereas
US and International orders are quoted in US dollars.
These figures will only remain valid until October 31, 1995 at which time
the introductory period will expire and the prices will increase by
approximately 50%.
Canada (CAN $) US (US $)* Inter.(US $)*
-------------- ------------- -------------
Software and User Manual 114.95 89.95 99.95
700 page printed Encyclopedia 49.95 44.95 54.95
*NOTE: Since we must process all credit card transactions in Canadian
dollars, the US prices provided above should only be considered as an
estimate if you are using a credit card for payment. Due to exchange
rate fluctuations between the time of purchase and the time your credit
card company processes the transaction, the actual amount may be a few
dollars more or less than that quoted above. However, the prices will
be accurate for cheque or money order transactions.
Fill out the following information, and send it to us at any of our
contact addresses (provided at the end of this document).
Price per unit Quantity Total
-------------- -------- -------
"The Digital Universe" software
and user manual __________ ________ _______
Printed version of the hypertext
encyclopedia __________ ________ _______
TOTAL _______
Payment can be made by check, money order, Visa, or Mastercard. If you
are paying by credit card, please provide the following information. If
not, please send the required remittance as we are unable to process
COD orders.
Credit Card Type (Visa or Mastercard)_________________________________
Credit Card Number _______________________________
Cardholder's Name _______________________________
Expiry Date _______________________________
We also require your name and address for the registration, as well as
your shipping address (if different):
Registration Address Shipping Address (if different)
____________________________ _______________________________
____________________________ _______________________________
____________________________ _______________________________
____________________________ _______________________________
____________________________ _______________________________
email contact address (if any): ________________________________
The Internet is not a secure network, and as a result determined thieves
can access some of the traffic passing through it. We will not accept
any liability for the security of any information that you send us. If
you would like to send your credit card information via email but are
concerned about the security risk, feel free to use PGP to encrypt your
message. You will find our PGP public key at the bottom of this message.
CONTACT ADDRESSES
-----------------
If you would like to order "The Digital Universe" or have further
questions about the software, please contact us at:
Syzygy Research & Technology Ltd.
Box 75
Legal, AB
T0G 1L0
CANADA
Internet email: sales@syz.com
support@syz.com
WWW: http://www.syz.com
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