Skychart
SkyChart (also known as Cartes du Ciel) lets users draw sky charts, making use of the data in a wide array of catalogues. In addition the position of planets, asteroids and comets are shown.
The purpose of this program is to prepare different sky maps for a particular observation. A large number of parameters help you to choose specifically or automatically which catalogs to use, the colour and the dimension of stars and nebulae, the representation of planets, the display of labels and coordinate grids, the superposition of pictures, the condition of visibility and more.
CDC includes the ability to control computerized GoTo telescope mounts. The program is INDI and ASCOM compliant (the latter is specific for Windows), and supports the USNO’s UCAC catalogs and ESA Gaia data, along with many other catalogs and utilities.
In common with other planetarium programs, you can zoom around and display various views of the sky from different directions using either the keyboard or dockable toolbars.
SkyChart feels noticeably sluggish compared to Celestia and Stellarium though. Like the other programs, it only uses 1 of the AK41’s 4 cores. But the main reason why it feels pedestrian is that the program doesn’t take advantage of the AK41’s GPU. Fortunately, SkyChart doesn’t need a lot of grunt, as it doesn’t offer things like real-time updates.
While its GPU (UHD Graphics 605) only has a small number of Execution units compared to a dedicated GPU and has to share system RAM, it still helps to considerably speed up programs like Celestia and Stellarium.
Pages in this article:
Page 1 – Introduction / Celestia
Page 2 – Stellarium
Page 3 – Skychart
Page 4 – KStars
Page 5 – AstroImageJ
Page 6 – Summary
Complete list of articles in this series:
| AWOW AK41 Mini PC | |
|---|---|
| Week 11 | Video consoles: SNES emulation |
| Week 10 | Running TeamViewer with AWOW AK41 as the host |
| Week 9 | Astronomy on the AK41 including Celestia, Stellarium, Skychart, and more |
| Week 8 | Recording video with OBS Studio |
| Week 7 | Home computer emulators: FS-UAE, ZEsaurUX, Hatari, Clock Signal |
| Week 6 | Web browsing with Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Vivaldi |
| Week 5 | Gaming: SuperTuxKart, AwesomeNauts, Retrocycles, Robocraft, DOTA 2, and more |
| Week 4 | Run multiple operating systems on the AK41 |
| Week 3 | Video and audio playback looking at hardware acceleration |
| Week 2 | Benchmarking the AK41 with 3 other low power machines |
| Week 1 | Introduction to the series including wiping Windows and installing Manjaro |
This blog is written on the AWOW AK41 Mini PC.
How much does the AK41 cost?
The Mini PC retails at $239.99 / £239.99
Hi Luke,
I have bought the AWOW AK41 but I cannot find the button to start the BIOS.
Do you know which button is the right one?
In addtion I’m looking for the handbook. Do you have an idea where I can get it?
Press the Delete or Escape key to access the BIOS.
There is the very brief quick guide, there is no ‘handbook’.