Starry Night Astronomy Software

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Starry Night FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions For Starry Night

Starry Night Pro 4.x FAQ

Stars - Information on the star data in Starry Night

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1. Where does the star data in Starry Night come from?

The star data for the nearest two million or so stars comes from the Hipparcos/Tycho catalogue, which is the result of a recent mission by the European Space Agency. Find out more about this catalog at the Hipparcos Project home page. The star data for dimmer stars comes from the USNO Star Catalog. Stars from this catalog are distinguished by the "USNO" at the beginning of their names.

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2. How do I search for stars in the various star catalogs?

Open the Find pane. For stars in the Hipparcos catalog, type "HIPxxxxx", where "xxxxx" is the star's Hipparcos catalog number. For stars in the Tycho catalog, type "TYCxxxx-xxxx-x", where "xxxx-xxxx-x" is the star's Tycho catalog number. For stars in the USNO Star catalog, type "USNOxxxx-xxxx", where "xxxx-xxxx" is the star's USNO catalog number.

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3. When I zoom far away from the earth, the stars all appear to group together in a ball around the sun. Is this the Miky Way?

No, this is a limitation of our star catalog. Starry Night has distances to about 100 000 stars from the Hipparcos Catalog. Most of the stars in this catalog are within a few hundred light years of the sun, so as you zoom out farther than this, they appear to cluster around the sun.

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4. Can I add recently discovered planets around stars other than our sun?

No. A future version of Starry Night may add this feature.

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