Image Editor

Starry Night Pro, Pro Plus, High School and Astrophoto Suite lets you add images of any area of the night sky. You can use your own images, or download them from the Digitized Sky Survey. The Image Editor allows you to resize and orient the image to integrate it seamlessly with your Starry Night view.

Adding Your Own Images

If you use a CCD camera for taking photos of the night sky, or if you have astronomy pictures you received from friends or downloaded from the World Wide Web, you can extend Starry Night Pro by adding the pictures using the Image Editor.

1. Download or acquire the image file you want to add to Starry Night.
2. Open the image in your favourite image-editing application and copy it to your clipboard.
3. In Starry Night, right-click (click and hold on a Macintosh) the object or area of the sky where you want to add your image.
4. Choose Add Image from the contextual popup menu.
   
   

5. The Image Editor window comes up. Click on the Details button. Name your image for future reference. Optionally, you can record a picture source, notes, the kind of object, its magnitude, and its distance.
   
   
   
   
6. Click Ok to go back to the main Image Editor window.
   
   
   
   

7. All near stars appear in green, making it easier to visually align your image with any stars that might be in it.
8. Align the image using the controls available in the Image Editor. There are controls for sizing, shifting, flipping, and rotating the image as needed.
9. When you are satisfied that your image is correctly aligned, click Save.

Adding Images from the Digitized Sky Survey

You can use Starry Night's Web link to the Digitized Sky Survey on to download and paste in images of galaxies, nebula, or any other object.

To add an image using the Digitized Sky Survey:

1. Select and right-click (click and hold on the Macintosh) a galaxy or NGC/IC object of which you would like to download a photograph.
   
   Note: It's fun to browse around the sky looking for interesting objects. Turn on all Galaxies and NGC-IC objects and look for clumps of stars.
   
2. Choose Add Image from the contextual popup menu.
   
3. The Image Editor opens. Name your image for future reference. Optionally, you can record a picture source, notes, the kind of object, its magnitude, and its distance.
   
4. Starry Night will have automatically guessed at the size of the image you wish to download, based on the original object you selected. In most cases you should accept the default size, but you can enlarge, shrink or shift the image bounds as needed.
   

5. Both Digitized Sky Survey images and the Image Editor are oriented equatorially. Do not rotate the image boundaries before requesting the DSS image.

6. Request the DSS image by pressing "From DSS". The program begins downloading the DSS image for that area of the sky. This may take a few minutes, depending on the server load.

7. Align the image using the controls available in the Image Editor. There are controls for sizing, shifting, flipping, and rotating the image as needed.
   
8. When you are satisfied that your image is correctly aligned, click Save.

Replacing Messier Images:

You can also replace the image of a Messier object with one of your own images.

1. Right-click (click and hold on the Macintosh) the image of the Messier object you want to replace.
2. Choose Edit Image from the contextual popup menu.
3. The Image Editor opens.
4. Paste in your new image ("From File") and position it using the Image Editor's controls.
5. Click Save to permanently replace the Starry Night Pro Messier image with your own.

Note: Use caution when replacing Starry Night's Messier images. Once you replace an image, you cannot return to the original image without reinstalling Starry Night.