Monday, December 17, 2012

learning SNP6

Started learning Starry Night, Pro, version 6. Perhaps instigated by the problem at the OSC last week, where I could not update (the slightly older version of) Stellarium (due to admin restrictions) and the prospect of using SN, shotgun, in the middle of my presentation, and possibly fumbling around... Ugh. No. No way. I guess it had been lurking in the back of my brain, but this incident turned up the temp. Or maybe it's been the Stellarium seminar date "negotiations" of late, readying for the next event, the next session, to help members. Maybe it's all the grey skies lately. Regardless, late at night, the last couple of nights, I've started exploring the software. Learning the basics.

Still very early in the process.

But it's already clear this application is big! Rich. With a lot of features. And, curiously, a lot of different ways for doing things. It's a little overwhelming, at the moment.

The other thing I keep running into is... differences. Or expectations. That is, I'm expecting that such a rich, complex, established, long-running product would have... well, all the bases covered. So, while I know I need to approach things different than I would in other planetarium software tools and certainly planning software products, I must say I'm a little surprised as I hit "road blocks." Where it seems some things are not possible in the application.

I sent Geoff a note to ask him if I could grill him...

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