Software Archaeology: Deep-Sky Planner 1

2011 marks twenty years of development on Deep-Sky Planner. Digging through my files has brought back some memories and some amusing facts ...

The story begins in 1987 when I got a copy of Borland's Turbo C for DOS to do some contract work. I also had the RNGC catalog so I massaged the catalog data with Turbo C for my own needs. This was hobby computing aimed at finding new things to observe with my Celestron-8.

Original Turbo C 1.0 and NGC2000.0 diskettes

In 1989, Sky Publishing released NGC 2000.0 on diskette. That quickly displaced RNGC for my growing needs - feeding a new 20 inch telescope. At the same time, I began working on a menuing system in DOS with Turbo C. It was a really simple system but it was much better than the command line programs that were the interface du jour.

In early 1991, I got Turbo C++ to learn the C++ language. I had evaluated Zortech C++ but found Turbo C++ to be easier, cheaper and sufficient for my needs. In the summer of 1991, I began working on the code that has become Deep-Sky Planner. I redesigned the menuing system that had originated in DOS and I began to design a data access system in C++ that was small and fast. By December I got a copy of Jean Meeus' Astronomical Algorithms and the C language library that came with it. These acquisitions allowed me to start adapting the Astronomical Algorithms library to C++ with speed of execution being the primary goal.

Borland C++ was released in 1992 with TurboVision, a DOS based library that provided a solid graphical user interface. My experience with developing commercial end-user applications highlighted the necessity of providing a user interface that users could understand. When I adapted my code to use TurboVision, I knew that my project might be commercially viable so I sent a written proposal to Sky Publishing. By August of that year, Sky had responded with interest so I sent the first evaluation version of Deep-Sky Planner to them on 2 diskettes.

By January of 1993, I received a publishing contract which was signed, sealed and delivered by February. There were many months of delays during acceptance testing and copy editing (of the manual) before the product was ready. There were some personnel changes at Sky during this time, and it was the first shrink-wrapped software product published by them.

Original product case & diskette 1 (of 2).

I had an interesting note from Sky's Books & Products Manager in January 1994 telling me to change the title to include a hyphen. That's why it's Deep-Sky Planner not Deep Sky Planner. Other corrections made during the copy editing process were helpful, but the hyphen one has always set this title apart from others. I still don't think 'deep sky' is wrong, but I'm not a professional copy editor either.

As part of the publishing process, Sky sent a marketing survey to me to help them understand how to market the product. One question asked about any competing products in the marketplace. I responded "I know of no other product that offers only textual output. Most are planetarium programs that also provide limited databases and limited reporting capabilities." I went on to mention TheSky for DOS (Software Bisque) $129, MegaStar (Emil Bonnano) $139, Deep Space 3-D for DOS (David Chandler Co.) $79 + $65 database upgrade. As far as I know, Deep-Sky Planner was the first commercially available observation planning product, debuting at $34.95.

Deep-Sky Planner 1 running on Windows XP

Deep-Sky Planner 1 was officially released on April 1, 1994 and the first advertisement appeared in the March 1994 issue of Sky & Telescope. It was speedy and compact, and it contained a lot of deep-sky objects (31,418) for the day. It didn't include any planet ephemeris computations which became the most-requested feature from users. Amazingly, it still runs under Windows XP.

Next time I'll look at version 2, an adventure into 16-bit Windows.

Version 5 update well underway

I had an opportunity to participate in a panel discussion about planning visual and imaging observing sessions at an astronomy club meeting last spring. Interestingly, half of the panelists plan carefully for both long term (months or years) and short term (tonight). Personally, I fall into the former group. The other half of the panelists relied on last minute preparation or lists created by others.

The panel and the audience agreed that most observers prowl magazines, books and the Internet for visual and imaging targets. Creating and sharing observing lists is possible with Deep-Sky Planner, but there has been a more elegant solution on the drawing board for quite some time. In fact, the prototyping of the solution was done 3 years ago - summer of 2007. Requirements have been gathered and refined in the interim through various means.

I read a lot of astronomy related material from books, magazines, professional journals and online articles. I also get a lot of ideas from users. (Did you notice I was taking notes while we talked at NEAF/PATS/star parties?) I am primarily a deep-sky observer, but I experimented with remote imaging over the summer. That experience moved some planning requirements from 'maybe' to 'must have'.

These new planning features (requirements) are beginning to take shape now in the form of coding. Two compiler upgrades this year have slowed coding, but it is progressing now at full speed. From an engineering perspective, the new features will benefit from new instrumentation capabilities in the newest compiler. That should translate into better quality and performance once the features reach users. From a user standpoint, the new features will come as a free update to version 5.

Please stay tuned for more information as work progresses. More details will become available as version 5.1 enters beta testing in Q1 2011.

PS - If you use Cartes du Ciel 3.2, there is a minor bug in the interface that Deep-Sky Planner 5 uses. The bug is already fixed in the development version of Cartes du Ciel, but a hotfix is available for Deep-Sky Planner 5 in case you prefer to stick with the officially released CdC v3.2. Deep-Sky Planner users can log in to the Community page and download the hotfix.

Fall observing returns!

The fall brings decent observing conditions back to North Carolina. Gone are the hazy, humid skies of summer.

Jupiter has been bright and stunning in the evening sky. Early morning has featured Orion in the south - a sure sign that transparent Winter observing will return soon.

The moon never fails to impress. This photo of the moon was taken on 6 October about 32 hours before new moon - a very old moon indeed. The bright earth shine in the morning twilight have a way of kick-starting the day. So much for the diversion. Now it's back to work!

Deep-Sky Planner Featured by Embarcadero

Deep-Sky Planner has always been developed in C++, most recently in C++ Builder from Embarcadero. C++ Builder is an excellent rapid application development solution for creating rich GUI Windows applications. C++ Builder is one of the development languages included in Embarcadero's RAD Studio, along with C, Delphi and PHP.

Each year, the new version of the development system is introduced worldwide at "Launch Events", where Embarcadero promotes the newest features in RAD Studio. This year's Launch Events highlight Deep-Sky Planner as a success story produced with C++ Builder. It's an honor to be recognized in this way among software professionals worldwide. If you are a developer of Rich GUI applications for Windows, you might want to have a look at RAD Studio XE.

The Great Unicode Migration

The last 2 months have been spent migrating program code for a compiler upgrade. It has been tedious work, affecting over 900 source files in Deep-Sky Planner alone. The bulk of the migration changes has been related to supporting Unicode. Unicode accommodates characters in most any language. System testing of the changes is in progress.

While the migration has seemed like non-productive work, it will permit Deep-Sky Planner and SQM Reader Pro to take advantage of new technologies that are supported in the new compiler. These technologies will be used to develop some exciting new features and to satisfy some user-requested ones - more on this later. These features will appear in a free update (v 5.1) to Deep-Sky Planner 5 that is scheduled for release in Q1 2011.

In the meantime, some minor issues surfaced in Deep-Sky Planner v 5.0.1 during the migration. Code reviews have a way of doing that. These issues will be fixed in a minor update (v 5.0.2) to be released soon - in Q3 or early Q4 2010.

Darkness Poll Closed - Results Are In!

The final results are in on the question How do you rate sky darkness?

19% don't rate darkness at all.
12% use the Bortle scale (read about this scale here).
48% estimate the naked-eye limiting magnitude (NELM).
19% use equipment that detects darkness in magnitude per square arcsec.

Sky darkness is a key component in planning visual and imaging observations. It is also an important statistic to include in logging observations. The 19% that don't bother to rate darkness could benefit from using one of the other scales.

Rating sky conditions could (should) be a matter of habit when setting up for a night's observing (or when imaging remotely). Including this metric in visual or imaging logs can help to identify conditions that work for you. If you aren't rating darkness, give it a try!

How do you rate darkness?

A poll has been running on the Deep-Sky Planner web page for several weeks that asks the simple question 'What scale do you use to rate sky darkness?'

The results as of now are a bit illuminating (pardon the pun).

• 20% don't bother with rating darkness at all. Observers really should rate darkness somehow.
• 12% use the Bortle scale. It is a very coarse scale but it is easy to use.
• 45% use NELM - the naked eye limiting stellar magnitude at the zenith. This is an easy test to conduct during observing but is subject to one's visual acuity and experience. It is a finer measure than Bortle, but subjective.
• 20% use magnitude per square arcsecond. This is very likely to be measured by equipment such as a Sky Quality Meter. It is easy to acquire this value during observing but only if you have the equipment. It is also a very objective measurement so it is the most precise measure of darkness, but it does require an investment.
• 0% just make up a number on their own scale. This is a surprise because observers often say something like 'darkness was 8 out of 10'. Maybe the poll is missing respondents on this question.

If you'd like to participate in this non-scientific poll, visit http://knightware.biz/dsp/ and look in the left column for the Observer's Poll. Please vote only once.