User Manual
Contents
Displaying
Celestial Bodies in the Sky
Displaying
the sky map according to your current position
Digital Compass
Introduction
VITO AstroNavigator
II is a GPS application that displays the sky map above you according to your
current position, time and direction of movement. It is high time to break away
from all the high-tech around and watch the night sky! With new VITO AstroNavigator II you can literally reach out and touch the
sky. Just slide with a joystick to rotate the screen and see a star, a planet,
or a constellation. Tap one of them to read a wealth of information about any
celestial body.
Start up
Note: You will need a standard GPS
receiver outputting NMEA sentences connected to your Pocket PC or a Pocket PC
with built-in GPS receiver.
GPS option adds the following to the
program:
1. If your GPS receiver has a
digital compass, it can determine what part of the sky is above you even if you
are turning around while standing at the same place. To turn on your digital
compass tap the button #0 and the icon in the bottom left corner of your screen
will become of red color.
2. As you go your way the program
uses GPS information about your movements to determine what part of the sky is
in above you.
3. The program will use the info
from GPS receiver to set the exact time zone according to the geographic
coordinates.
GPS option works only when the
signal from the receiver is acquired (see Suggestions, GPS).
Bluetooth GPS users should study
Section on Bluetooth
GPS.
Activation
Downloadable version of VITO AstroNavigator II is fully functional and has to be
purchased and activated for further usage after 20 minutes trial period. Please
purchase VITO AstroNavigator II at vitotechnology.com
To activate:
· connect your device to Internet+
· start VITO AstroNavigator
II
· go Menu > Activate
· press Activate button, type into the empty
field the activation code from the email you received from VITO Technology
after purchasing VITO AstroNavigator II, choose “I
have Internet” and press Activate button below.
In case you can't
connect to Internet from your smartphone, activation
will take more time:
· start VITO AstroNavigator
II
· go Menu > Activate
· press
Activate button, type into the empty field the activation code from the email
you received from VITO Technology after purchasing VITO AstroNavigator
II, choose “I have no Internet” and press Activate button below. Carefully read
instructions on the screen. After you've performed the necessary action you
will receive an e-mail with the necessary instructions for completing your
activation.
Note: as you can see on-line activation is much
easier than the off-line variant, which can take considerably more time. We
recommend you on-line activation.
If you have any
questions or problems regarding the activation process, please contact our
support at registr@vitotechnology.com.
GPS Settings
GPS basics
If you have a built-in GPS receiver you may
make GPS settings in the AstroNavigator II. Start up
the program, choose Menu>GPS
settings>Scan. The program starts searching and it identifies the
built-in GPS receiver. There appears window with a question "GPS found on
# port: @******. Use it?" You may continue using the
program by pressing Yes button or continue
the search of another GPS receiver pressing No. When you found the
receiver, tap Yes to continue using
the program.
BlueTooth GPS
To use VITO AstroNavigator
II with Blue Tooth GPS you may need to make some additional steps before
starting-up.
1. Before starting the program, turn BT radio
on.
2. Check that BT sees your GPS in BT Manager.
3. Tap the option Create outgoing Port.
4. Start up the program.
5. Choose Menu>GPS
settings>Scan.
6. It recognizes the connection with
|
Screenshot #1 |
If the GPS receiver works fine, on
the top left of your screen the icon with the globe image will become green.
There will also appear satellites from which your GPS receiver gets signals.
If the signal from the satellite is strong enough its color will be green. If
it is not, it will be blue. The figures inside circles denote
signal strength of each satellite measured in decibel. |
|
Screenshot #2 |
If the globe icon is yellow, then
the connection with the GPS exists but it does not determine valid
coordinates |
|
Screenshot #3 |
If the globe icon is blue, the
connection with the GPS has failed. |
Manual GPS Setup
|
|
There is
such a possibility to set up GPS manually. To do this (if you have Bluetooth
GPS you are to fulfill steps 1-4 from Buetooth GPS section), then enter main menu by tapping right soft key,
choose GPS settings. Press
button 1 to choose com port, press button 2 to choose baudrate. |
Interface
|
Screenshot #4 |
1. Search (left soft key) 2. View Options (left soft key) 3. Positioning (left soft key) 4. Main Menu (right soft key) 5. Digital Compass (#0) |
|
Screenshot #5 |
Tap the left soft key and there
will appear Search menu. The extensive list with the names
of celestial bodies will be displayed on the screen. On the top of the screen there
appear three icons with the images of a star, planet and constellation. Use right, left, up and down arrows to choose what celestial body
you want to find. |
|
|
Screenshot #6 |
Tapping
an icon brings forward a list of corresponding celestial bodies (stars,
planets or constellations). Use up and down arrows to scroll the list and
then tap enter button to see its disposition in the sky. |
|
|
Screenshot #7 |
Tap the left soft key button to
get View options. Here you may add
or remove the displaying of stars, planets, constellations and grid by
tapping icons with the corresponding number for each image. This option makes
celestial bodies and a grid either visible or invisible. |
|
|
Screenshot #8 |
Tap the left soft key to make Positioning button appear. Another option to use is either to
observe stars that are currently above you, or to observe the star sky from
any point of the world. To do this switch on or off the GPS button (it is red
when it is active) For details study section: Displaying the sky
map according to your current position. |
|
|
Screenshot
#9
Screenshot
#10 |
Bringing
forward Main Menu by tapping right
soft key (screenshot #9) you may set up the following options: About GPS Settings Language Skin Minimize Exit GPS
Settings are described in the previous section. You may
choose one of the available languages. There are
two skins: normal and night view. Night view skin (screenshot #10) displays
night sky in dim red colors that doesn't dazzle you and you clearly watch the
stars above you. |
|
Searching Celestial
Bodies
VITO AstroNavigator
II has a function of searching any stars, planets or constellations by name.
Press the left soft button for
activating Search button. On the top
of the display there will appear three icons with the images of a star, planet
and constellation. Choose what celestial body you want to find (a star, planet
or constellation). See Screenshot #5.
Choose an icon with an image of a star, planet or constellation by using
left or right arrow
buttons, there will appear an extensive list of names, choose the one you are
interested in choose it, VITO AstroNavigator II will
immediately show it.
You may also zoom in and zoom out
the sky map by pressing enter and delete button correspondingly.
Displaying Celestial
Bodies in the Sky
Degree of elevation can be seen on
the left of the display and degree of azimuth – at the top (see also Glossary).
Having chosen the View Options (press left soft button) you can show or hide stars (#1),
planets (#2), constellations (#3) or the grid (#4). For example, you want to
observe only planets in accordance with the grid in the sky then you can hide
stars and constellations.
|
Screenshot #11 |
Screenshot #12 |
You may also zoom in and zoom out
the sky map by pressing enter and delete button correspondingly.
Displaying the sky
map according to your current position
When the GPS button is red
(Screenshot #13), the sky map is adjusted according to your current position.
Tap the left soft button once again; there will appear (Screenshot #14) the sky
and celestial bodies that are above you at the moment.
|
Screenshot #13 |
Screenshot #14 |
The possible functions are :
·
zooming
in and out of the celestial bodies,
·
digital
compass support (you may switch it on or off by tapping the icon in the bottom
left)
·
scrolling
the sky map
·
getting
astronomic coordinates and info about stars and planets
When the GPS button is blue (Screenshot #15), the GPS receiver is off. By
using joystick you may drag the point to any place on the Earth so you make
VITO AstroNavigator II display (Screenshot #16) the
celestial bodies that are observed from that place on the Earth.
|
Screenshot #15 |
Screenshot #16 |
Digital compass
If your GPS receiver has a digital
compass you may either switch this option on or off. To switch it on press the
button #0 and the compass icon in the bottom left corner will become of red
color. Having switched this option on the exact sky picture above you will be
displayed; when you activate this compass you can scroll the sky map only up
and down. With activated digital compass the program moves the sky according to
your position even if you do not move back and forward but stay still and turn
around.
If your GPS receiver does not have a
digital compass, and you switch this option on the program will show you the
exact picture of night sky only if you move.
Glossary
1.Proper Names.
The best-known and most-familiar
names assigned by International Astronomical Union.
2.Bayer Catalog Names.
To bring order out the chaos of
proper names, around the year 1600 Johannes Bayer, in what is now Germany,
applied lower case Greek letter names to the stars more or less in order of
brightness, rendering the brightest star in a constellation "Alpha,"
the second Beta," and so on. To the Greek letter name is appended the
Latin possessive form of the constellation name.
3.HR Number (Harvard
Revised Number).
The basic identification used in the
Bright Star Catalog from
4."Visual" Apparent Magnitude and "B-V Color Index"
The apparent magnitude of a star,
planet or other celestial body is a measure of its apparent brightness as seen
by an observer on Earth. The brighter the object appears, the lower the
numerical value of its magnitude. Very bright objects have negative magnitudes.
For example, Sirius, the brightest star of the celestial sphere, has an
apparent magnitude of -1.44 to –
1.46. Scale of apparent magnitudes
|
App. Mag. |
Celestial
object |
|
-26.73 |
Sun |
|
-12.6 |
full Moon |
|
-8.0 |
Maximum
brightness of an Iridium Flare |
|
-4.4 |
Maximum
brightness of Venus |
|
-4.0 |
Faintest
objects observable during the day with naked eye |
|
-2.8 |
Maximum
brightness of Mars |
|
-1.5 |
Brightest
star at visible wavelengths: Sirius |
|
-0.7 |
Second
brightest star: |
|
0 |
The zero
point by definition: This used to be Vega |
|
~3 |
Faintest
stars visible in an urban neighborhood |
|
~6 |
Faintest
stars observable with naked eye |
|
12.6 |
Brightest
quasar |
|
27 |
Faintest
objects observable in visible light with 8m ground-based telescopes |
|
30 |
Faintest
objects observable in visible light with Hubble Space Telescope |
Label "V" means
"Visual Magnitude" measured by human eye. It usually differs from
"B"-magnitude, which is indicates the brightness of an object in a
particular photometricband. For "B"
magnitudes, that band is centered on 440 nanometers (Blue light).
Thus, difference between
"V" and "B" magnitudes became a measure of temperature of
stars and is called "B-V Color Index".
Hot stars appear bluer than cooler
stars. Cooler stars are redder than hotter stars. The "B-V color
index" is a way of quantifying this using two different filters: one a
blue (B) filter that only lets a narrow range of colors or wavelengths through
centered on the blue colors, and a "visible" (V) filter that only
lets the wavelengths close to the green-yellow band through. A hot star has a
B-V color index close to 0 or negative, while a cool star has a B-V color index
close to 2.0. Other stars are somewhere in between.
5.6.Celestial coordinates. Right
Ascension & Declination.
The celestial coordinate system for
defining the positions of stars and such are just extensions of the geographic
coordinate system. One could think of stopping the rotation of the Earth in
some convenient place in its orbit, then projecting the position of any star
down onto the globe's surface on the radial line outward from the Earth's
center. This is what is meant by the celestial sphere, and it is usually
pictured as a larger sphere containing the Earth and concentric with the Earth
- every point on the Earth has a point directly above it on the celestial
sphere, and every star on the celestial sphere has a point on the Earth
directly below. On the celestial sphere, the North Celestial Pole (NCP) and
South Celestial Pole (SCP) correspond directly to their geographic
counterparts, as does the Celestial Equator. The coordinate system is also a
direct analog, with declination (Dec) measured as the latitude is on the globe,
and the right ascension (RA) corresponding to longitude - though for right
ascension, the angle is measured in units of 0 to 24 hours from the zero-hour point.
This is because rotation causes the place of the celestial coordinates above
the Earthbound observer, so the right ascension of an
object gives the number of hours since the zero-hour circle was at the same
position in the sky.
7.8.Azimuth & Elevation.
The coordinate system that we are
most used to is that centered about us as we stand looking at the sky. This
reference frame is known as azimuth-Elevation (or azimuth-altitude), after the
coordinate axes themselves. Altitude or elevation measures the angle above the
horizon that an object appears at, while azimuth (AZ) gives the compass angle
toward the object. Think of sighting a telescope by swinging it around to the
correct compass heading toward the star, then moving upward to bring the star
into the viewfinder. Elevation (also sometimes called "altitude") is
measured from the horizon, 0 degrees, to the point on the sky directly overhead
at 90 degrees - this is called the zenith. Although it isn't visible through
the Earth, the point directly opposite the zenith, straight below us, is the
nadir. The azimuth is measured North through East along the horizon, with North
0 degrees, East 90 degrees, South 180 degrees, and West 270 degrees. The
observers meridian is the circle passing through the zenith from due north to
due south (AZ 0 to 180 degrees).
Suggestions
GPS
reception (especially in the city) can vary and be unstable. If
you have unstable reception, next day (or in a few hours) or in a different place,
you may have a lot better reception.
GPS does
not work inside buildings. Choose an open space; preferably without trees and
buildings around.
Wait a few
minutes after you turn the GPS receiver on until it starts receiving
coordinates (time span varies with different GPS receivers). When you turn it
off and on afterwards, signal acquisition will be much faster.
It is
desirable to have some working knowledge of GPS receivers using simple
applications like GPSInfo or Navigator II. It is
recommended to "warm" the receiver before using it (3-5 minutes after
it acquires coordinates) running some GPS program (for example, GPSInfo, Navigator II). But do not forget to exit it before
starting AstroNavigator II since a GPS receiver can
work only with one program at a time. Watch for PDOP (HDOP) in GPS utility
programs. Good reception is manifested by PDOP value less than 4. If PDOP is
greater than 10, most likely you do not have good reception.
Contact Us
If you have any questions, comments
or suggestions on VITO AstroNavigator II, please
email us at support@vitotechnology.com.