Due to my CyberSky astronomy software generating low revenue over the last year, Digital River MyCommerce, the company that has handled online sales and fulfillment for me for many years, has terminating my account.
The software business has changed dramatically since I first released CyberSky as shareware, a term I don’t think is used any more. I took the termination of my account as a sign I should retire, and have stopped sales of the program, effective May 3, 2024.
Thank you for your support, for sending me bug reports and a lot of suggestions to help me make CyberSky better, and especially for the many kind words you’ve sent me about my software over nearly three decades.
Overview
CyberSky is an accurate, yet easy-to-use planetarium program that provides an excellent way to learn about astronomy and explore the sky visible in the distant past, the present, and the far-off future. CyberSky can display and print attractive, highly-customizable maps of the sky as seen from your home, your favorite vacation spot, or any other location on the Earth. The program’s clean, user-friendly interface makes it easy to identify the objects you see in the sky and find the objects you want to see.
CyberSky has a versatile animation feature that lets you watch astronomical events unfold at whatever pace you desire. This feature is not only a lot of fun, it makes the program very well-suited for astronomy education. Many of the most basic and interesting astronomical phenomena can only be seen over weeks, months, or even years, or by observing the sky from widely separated locations on the Earth. CyberSky lets you do this—it places the sky under your control.
CyberSky is used by people all over the world who want to become familiar with the objects they see in the sky, by amateur and professional astronomers who need a straightforward, uncluttered planetarium program, by parents who want to share their interest in astronomy with their children, and by educators who want to empower their students to learn in a way unimagined a generation ago. CyberSky has something to offer you, regardless of your level of astronomy knowledge.
Features
CyberSky lets you do all of the following, and much more.
- View colorful, detailed maps of the sky as seen from any location on the Earth at any moment from 15,000 BC to 15,000 AD.
- Display constellations, asterisms, about 2.5 million stars, over 5,500 deep-sky objects, the Milky Way, the Sun and Moon, planets, both moons of Mars, Jupiter’s four brightest moons, Saturn’s eight brightest moons, the five brightest moons of Uranus, Neptune’s brightest moon Triton, asteroids, comets, and meteor showers.
- Display proper-motion vectors, which are lines that show the speeds and directions that the stars are moving.
- Display the cross-section of the Earth’s shadow at the distance of the Moon, which lets you see the circumstances of lunar eclipses.
- Display the paths of the Sun and Moon, planets, asteroids, and comets with respect to the background stars and the horizon.
- Display equatorial, horizontal, ecliptic, and galactic coordinate-system lines, as well as the positions of the coordinate-system poles, the equinoxes and solstices, and other important points in the sky.
- Display finder circles like those you see through a Telrad reflex sight or a similar sighting device.
- Save maps to files and open them again later, just like saving and opening documents in a word processor. Many sample maps are included. You can also save maps as Windows bitmap, GIF, JPEG, PNG, and TIFF images.
- Print beautiful, high-quality maps on any printer supported by Windows, in black and white or in full color. Use print preview to see what a printed map will look like before you print it.
- Use night-vision mode to preserve the dark adaptation of your eyes while using the program outdoors as you observe the night sky.
- Use the animation feature to watch objects move across the sky, solar and lunar eclipses take place, moons revolve around planets, and many other astronomical events unfold at whatever pace you desire.
- Display a view of the planets and their orbits around the Sun. This view appears in a separate window, so you can watch the planets revolve around the Sun and see them move across the sky at the same time.
- View detailed information about objects, as well as information about the seasons of the year, the beginning and end of twilight, the visibility of the planets, and the phases of the Moon.
- Customize the program’s user interface by rearranging menu commands and toolbar buttons, adding commands you use often to new or existing toolbars, and reassigning keyboard shortcuts to your liking. You can also customize the application’s appearance by selecting among six Office-like themes.
System requirements
To use CyberSky, you need:
- Microsoft Windows Vista, 7, 8, 10, or 11 operating system
- 256 MB or more of available computer memory
- 128 MB or more of available hard-disk space
- 1024 × 768 or higher screen resolution