TheSky Astronomy Software 5.0.6 for Mac is now shipping from Software Bisque. The US$129 astronomy software now supports more telescopes and has several new features.
Now TheSky for Macintosh can control telescopes such as the Celestron NexStar 5, Celestron NexStar 8 , Celestron NexStar 11 GPS, and all Autostar models. TheSky for Mac now supports the SkySensor 2000 control system and the Losmandy Gemini control system.
Though it’s not Carbonized for Mac OS X, the astronomy application does run in the operating system’s Classic mode. Some of the software’s features have been optimized, according to James Brasure of Software Bisque.
With the latest version, you can display a slide show of your favorite pictures; you can change pictures at the click of a button, or at timed intervals; TheSky now saves a preview image into each Sky document; and later, when you are trying to find a particular document, you can see the preview in the Open dialog.
With version 5.0.6, you can download the latest comets and minor planets (asteroids) from the Internet. And speaking of minor planets, the Minor Planet Center has more than 100,000 minor planets. You can download this list from the Minor Planet Center web site, and load the minor planets into TheSky.
A new option in the Comets and Minor Planets dialog lets you display the 24-hour path of extended minor planets to make it easier to see where a minor planet will be on a given night. TheSky 5.0.6 adds the ability for some telescopes (like the LX-200) to be controlled with push-button style controls. You can choose to move the telescope a given amount (perhaps 10 degrees), or you can hold down the button as long as you want the telescope to keep moving.
There are also some new features for shutterbugs and more “field of view” indicators. Indicators have been added for several popular optical configurations and you can also add your own custom indicators. TheSky 5.0.6 also has an enhanced interface, improved accuracy, better stability and other improvements, Brasure said.