SkyLight™
Let Your PC Monitor be Your Skylight on the Stars!




A Quick Excursion around SkyLight
First, what precisely does SkyLight do?

SkyLight is a revolutionary screensaver whose driver resides in your System Tray. After a determined period of mouse inactivity, SkyLight bursts into view -- transforming your whole screen into a live window on your local night sky. Your PC's display becomes nothing less than a dynamically changing view of the starry heavens. SkyLight sits in your system tray, a pocket planetarium in its own right, changing your sky view automatically as the Earth turns, and waiting for you to access its own "sky driver" display with a double-click. Every change you make on the planetarium's virtual celestial sphere will be reflected on your monitor when SkyLight "saves" its screen. Those are the essentials, and there is really very little else to it.


Loading and the System Tray

Running SkyLight is just a matter of clicking on the SkyLight galaxy icon or shortcut wherever you installed the program. We recommend, however, that a shortcut to SkyLight be placed in your Windows\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp\ folder so that each time you boot Windows, SkyLight is automatically put into your system tray for instant access. When you first install SkyLight, this is accomplished for you by default, so the next time you boot your PC, the screensaver is ready to go into action.

The most essential trick to learn is how to make the SkyLight planetarium 'driver' appear and disappear from your screen in order to adjust the way the sky looks. All you do is double-click on the SkyLight icon in your system tray. This operation is what is known as a toggle, so if the sky is already present, a double click will minimize it, and if it is absent, clicking will make it reappear. While visible, though, the quickest way to hide the display is to double-click anywhere in the full-screen sky. This is perhaps the most important trick of all, so we'll repeat it:

With the full-screen "sky driver" visible, a double-click will minimize it back to the system tray.

Let's begin by taking a look at the system tray icon's dedicated right-click popup menu. This, as its name suggests, is accessed by right clicking with the mouse pointer on the miniaturised galaxy icon in your Windows system tray. Most of the items on this popup menu are self-explanatory, the most important without doubt being Settings and Help.

Settings will allow you to find and enter your correct geographic coordinates and time zone so that SkyLight will always show your night sky as you would see it from your own backyard.

Help will bring up the means to access an Introduction, the Overview you are reading now, or the more extended and systematic Guide to Mouse and Key Functions for the entire Coeli Software range. Many of the sky operations relating to our flagship application Stella 2000 will apply to SkyLight. The HTML Help menu item is also a toggle, so clicking it a second time will reinstate SkyLight's sky display.


"The best PC sky show in town"

When ZDNet referred to Stella 2000 in this way, they were not exaggerating...

For Stella's representation of the sky, realism was the watchword from Day One... The essence of a star is its color. So, if you see a deep crimson on your Coeli sky-screen, you can be certain that it is an M, or a piercing white an F, or an orange like Arcturus or Aldebaran a K. Observe the true heavens on a crystal night - each star has its tint, each planet its hue, albeit cast over with tropospheric blue.

And SkyLight uses the renowned Stella engine to drive its display, so you can be confident that your screen will be showing off the night sky at its most accurate and realistic.

SkyLight's Sky Driver

The sky driver's own popup menu is accessed by right-clicking on the SkyLight icon in your System Tray. When the sky driver's planetarium display appears, you can access all SkyLight's sky-adjustment functions by right clicking in anywhere in the sky. This context menu is the simplest way to accesses SkyLight's planetarium features.

So, to sum up, the program contains two important popup menus: one in the system tray, and one in the sky itself. You will find yourself using the latter almost exclusively.

However, by far the fastest way to manipulate the sky driver is via SkyLight's extensive array of keyboard shortcuts. So it is on these keypresses that we shall now concentrate.

Some Hints on General Navigation

What the Sky driver initially presents you with is the entire celestial sphere for the preset location, with South at the bottom, East at the left. Vega will be the initial focus for northern observers and Canopus for the southern hemisphere. Stars plotted in dark grey lie below your horizon: they have set, not yet risen, or may never rise at your position.


SkyLight's virtual Earth revolves in real time, and the apparent motion of the stars is from left to right when facing south. This realtime display updates itself every minute or so. Zooming will be smooth all the way down to the magnitude limit.

SkyLight's default celestial projection is an azimuthal Equal Area, [F3], centered on your zenith. It is of the type used by planetaria the world over, so it is in good company, but if you happen to desire a change, there are three more to experiment with: Equidistant [F2], Stereographic [F4], and Orthographic [F5]. When you gain a little more experience using SkyLight, you'll want to begin experimenting with contrasting viewpoints too.

Start by pressing [H] for a horizon view of the southern sky. To traverse through the 360 degrees of the compass, access the traverse and elevation tools with [ctrl][D] or [ctrl][E]. Alternatively, you may prefer to enable auto-centering at the outset with |Viewpoint|Projection|Auto-center| thus doing the job of the traverse and elevation tools automatically each time you click on a new object. With its often abrupt switching of view, this setting can prove disorienting on occasion, especially if you have not yet attained full familiarity with your local celestial geography! As with all things SkyLight, it will therefore pay to experiment a little.

[Z] will return you to a zenith view, but at the new line of sight you traversed with the tools.

It is worth stressing that after any operations which somehow change SkyLight's viewpoint, pressing [F12] immediately is the safest way to ensure an accurate display of all stars visible at the current magnification. For extra responsiveness, some operations do not incorporate this process.

By default, [a]uto-resolution of stars is switched on. What this means is that you only begin to see the dimmer stars as you increase your resolving power (change to binoculars/telescope), in imitation of reality. SkyLight's initial magnification is negative in order to encompass the entire sky. Zoom down to zero magnification to receive an impression of the sky as seen on a clear night by the naked eye. To adjust the number of stars visible at any given magnification, press [+] or [-]. Auto-resolution will need to be disabled with [a] if you wish your changes to survive any zooming or unzooming operations you might perform subsequently.

SkyLight itself provides these keys for tampering with colors: [B] , [D] , and [R].

[B] brightens (lightens) the palette uniformly, giving a washed-out effect, and finally washes color out completely. [D] achieves exactly the opposite, darkening - and thereby deepening - all the colors. Unrealistic, as if seen through sunglasses, but you may find it a change. It at least reveals a star's underlying 'character', subleties that the brightness may have hidden.



[z] does just what it says: zooms you in (or narrows the field of view, like a pair of binoculars or a telescope), displaying the magnification factor as you go. Try this on Albireo, Izar, Castor, Mizar and many others. They will eventually resolve as true doubles, imitating reality. [x] widens the field, and zooms you out. SkyLight automatically resolves stars for you in proportion to the magnification, like a real instrument: the bigger the objective glass, the more stars you will see and the brighter the more brilliant ones will appear. Conversely, the more extremely your field narrows, the fewer stars will be seen, because SkyLight's database is restricted, unlike the galaxy's.

Perhaps the [a]uto resolution feature merits a bit more elaboration. Firstly, if you disable it, you will have to add and brighten stars manually via the keys listed on SkyLight's [h]elp screen. This is long winded, but the best way to achieve the most impressive results for the given magnification, and to derive the most personal satisfaction. We all see the sky differently and are affected by different facets of it. But for quicker and yet still fairly realistic resolution, our preset values are quite good. Keep it automatic until you come across a starfield which you truly deem worth perfecting.

SkyLight is also a point-and-click introduction to the skies, and the mouse-crosshair its most useful instrument. Use the crosshair to select a star, then click the <left> button for a short display of the star's name and designation as follows:

  • The Greek letter plus I.A.U. abbreviation (Bayer nomenclature), accompanied by the Flamsteed number. For dimmer stars, just a Yale Catalogue number will be given, and in the case of Hipparcos and SAO stars, the Henry Draper ID. If the star has a common name this will be displayed underneath.

Using the [c]entre key on a series of points is the best way to star-hop across the heavens: Use the stars as 'stepping stones' as you shift your gaze. The technique goes like this: click on the first point, centre the display, click on the next point, centre the display, and so on. SkyLight does not restrict you to stepping across stars, you may also click and center on Deep Sky Objects, planets, comets, the Sun and Moon, or empty space.




Ordering SkyLight


SkyLight is Shareware, or "try-before-you-buy" software. SkyLight's evaluation period is unlimited, and the trial version is not disabled in any significant way. But you must purchase SkyLight if you'd like it to become a permanent fixture on your PC. SkyLight costs just $24.98.

Ordering by CREDIT CARD is by far the fastest way to obtain your registered copy of SkyLight. Turnaround times are typically between 12 and 24 hours. You may order online or by phone/fax anytime and from anywhere in the world.


Order by CREDIT CARD via ShareIt


ShareIt! takes worldwide orders for SkyLight online by Visa, MasterCard, EuroCard, American Express, or Diners Club. To order, just click on the following link:

ORDER LINK -- Click right here to order SkyLight today! -- ORDER LINK
and follow the signposts, or telephone

1-800-903-4152 ( Toll-free USA)


+49-221-2407278 ( International )


or fax

+49-221-2407279



THESE NUMBERS ARE FOR ORDERS ONLY! No technical enquiries, please.


If you prefer, you may order by post from:

ShareIt! / Element 5 AG
Vogelsanger Strasse 78

50823 Koeln
Germany

NB: Please be sure to leave one full line between the Street Address and the city and postal (zip) code. This is a norm of the German postal system and is crucial in assuring the smooth automatic sorting of the mail.


If you are located in the USA, you can also pay by sending a check or cash to the following address:

ShareIt! Inc.
PO Box 844
Greensburg, PA 15601-0844
USA

(Please send only checks drawn on US-American banks to this address.)


When ordering from ShareIt! please quote program/product ID

143393 - SkyLight Screensaver



System Requirements

Minimum

SkyLight can be installed on any IBM compatible PC with a 486 DX processor or higher running Windows 95, 98, or 2000. The more video and conventional RAM you have, the better - 1 Mb or more for the former, and at least 8Mb of the latter.

Recommended

The recommended system for running SkyLight is a Pentium 75 or higher with 16 Mb of RAM and a graphics card equipped with at least 2 Mb VRAM.

Additionally, SkyLight requires that your Windows display be in either Hi-color or Truecolor mode at a resolution of at least 800x600 pixels. The optimum screen resolution for SkyLight is 1024x768. Please note that a display of only 256 colors is bound to be a disappointment.

Finally, we DO NOT recommend the use of utilities which render zip files transparent or which interfere in some way with normal file operations, such as Zip Magic or the Windows 98 'compact folders' facility, and, it scarcely needs adding, "WALLPAPER MANAGERS" of any shape or form. We hereby disclaim any obligation to support problems brought about by your use of such utilities with SkyLight. All such use is entirely at your own risk.