Our online system is a detailed star sky map. This view is the first thing you see after entering the site:
«Browsing Area» (will be referred as Browsing Area from now) represents our star sky.
In this particular example you can see a plane projection of the whole star sky.
Point your mouse at any object inside Browsing Area and a Basic Information Window will automatically appear,
providing basic scientific data about the object. You can mouse-click on the zoom slider.
By zooming in and out you can change the scale of the map and therefore alter the content of Browsing Area.
There are two different browsing modes. This image shows the sky when you brows it in normal mode:
And following image shows the view of the Browsing Area in SDSS mode:
Use «drag-n-drop» operation to shift the star sky in Browsing Area. You have to place the mouse
in Browsing Area without pointing at any object. Press and hold the left button of the mouse.
Move the mouse and you will see the star sky in Browsing Area moving as well.
There are about 500 millions stars in the databases we currently use.
Only small amount of these stars can be displayed simultaneously
in Browsing Area at any given period of time.
You can view more and more space objects (the less bright stars)
by increasing the scale of the map and decreasing the visual angle.
Finally you should receive a view similar to this one:
In this particular visual example there are only two stars present in Browsing Area.
Both objects have apparent magnitude close to 19.
That means these two stars can only be seen in powerful professional telescopes.
You can also search for an object by its name or ID.
Enter the name or ID of any object that you would like to locate into
the text field and click «Find Object» button .
If the object is found in the databases, it will be centered in Browsing Area.
The scale of the map will be automatically determined by the system to make the object visible.
The Object’s Page
If the mouse is close enough to an object (or right on an object),
its Basic Information Window appears showing the data about the object.
The basic data include ID, names, constellations, exact coordinates,
distances from Earth and apparent magnitudes.
If you mouse-click once while this Basic Information Window is still being visible,
the Object Page will open. An Object Page contains detailed information about its star.
In addition an Object Page displays all photo images where its star is present,
articles and all external links about the star.
From the main menu you can go to «Photo Gallery» page where the real photo images of the star sky are displayed.
Each field with yellow borders determines projection’s boundaries of a star sky photograph.
When the mouse pointer is inside a field like that,
a minimized version of the photograph appears near the pointer.
If the mouse points to the area of the intersection of the several fields,
all the photographs of all the fields will be displayed.
For example, on the image above the mouse points at the intersection
of three different fields and you can take a look at the minimized versions of all three images.
If you left-click the mouse at this moment, you will change the mode to «Select Image».
Click now on an image you would like to view in details and it will be loaded:
Point the mouse on an object on the photograph and the object’s
Basic Information Window will open exactly the same way it happens in Browsing Area.
If you mouse-click on the object, you will be redirected you to the Object’s Page.
You can see the current coordinates of the mouse on the star sky and
the reference to the original source of the image right above it.