Hello Astronomy Interest Group members

Those of you who attended the meeting at the Museum on Wednesday night will agree it was a really interesting and enjoyable evening - with 84 people present from three different astronomical societies!

Some have asked about the astronomy software I demonstrated towards the end of my presentation.

I used two different programmes:

(1) Redshift 3 (CD-ROM) - on which I demonstrated the night sky and zoomed in and out of various objects. The programme costs R269 (incl. VAT) from Incredible Connection, and you need to speak to Bernadette Westley (Tel: 031-2686000), mentioning my name and the Museum to her.

This is a really powerful and flexible 'desktop planetarium', which I recommend.

(2) Home Planet - I used this simpler programme (free off the Internet) to demonstrate the planets revolving around the sun. I think it also has a simple sky chart. It is very simple and easy to use.

I can copy it for you on 6 stiffy disks.

As I will be giving it to you compressed, you will need WinZip to extract it (if you don't have WinZip, let me have an extra disk and I will copy that for you too).

Then in Windows 95 you just go to "Accessories" > "System Tools" > "Backup".

In "Backup" you choose to restore Home Planet. ("Backup" is part of Win 95, so it can easily be installed off your Win 95 CD if it is not already installed).

If you have problems, give me a call on 082 829 7645.

Regards

Mario