The CCD Guide 2023 is now available. Every year since 1997, the Astronomischer Arbeitskreis Salzkammergut astronomy club in Austria has published the CCD-Guide, which assists astrophotographers in planning their imaging projects.
Besides a huge number of reference images, the CCD-Guide contains software to find images, to view images and to obtain all necessary data. The newest release offers 363 new astrophotos and considerable software enhancements. The entire collection contains more than 5,000 reference images of more than 1300 objects from 56 contributing astrophotographers.
The CCD Guide 2023 offers a powerful planning tool named ObjectTracker, which quickly and easily answers the question of whether a particular object can be photographed at a selected location on a particular night. The ideal time window for taking photographs is calculated by taking into account including twilight, moon, object altitude and optional horizon. The altitude progression of the object and of the moon is displayed in an intuitive graphic.
Features of the CCD Guide 2023 software include:
– Extensive deep sky object database including object data, based on 30 big standard catalogues.
– Easy search function for objects.
– Simultaneous viewing of object data, image acquisition data and preview picture.
– Filter the images by different criteria, e.g. coordinates, object type, object size, constellation, catalogue, observer, camera, telescope or date.
– Create a slide show of selected images.
– Input your own images including data to create your personal image archive.
– Observation planning for astrophotographers including calculation of the ideal observation window considering object height, Sun, Moon and local horizon.
CCD-Guide team members work voluntary and all income is used exclusively to cover production costs or to support projects of the Astronomischer Arbeitskreis Salzkammergut astronomy club.
You can order the new CCD-Guide 2023 at a price of 29€ for the download. All users of previous CCD-Guide versions can buy an update for the new release at reduced prices. Students can receive the CCD-Guide free of charge for their work and projects.
If you would like to learn more about the new features of the software, there will be a free online presentation of CCD-Guide 2023 including live demonstrations of concrete application examples. The presentation will be presented in English on Saturday, January 14, 2023 18:00 UT. To register send an e-mail to bernhard.hubl [at] astronomie.at.
Order information about the CCD Guide 2023 is available here.
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