Command Reference

Menu Commands

File Menu
Q File Quit 	Quits

Time Menu
Time Set Time to Now 	Sync time to system clock
S Time Set Time... 	Choose time and date
Time Start/Stop Clock 	Toggle whether time passes

Location Menu
Location Zenith 	Center at the Zenith point (straight up)
F Location Find Object 	Locate an object by name
T Location Track Object 	Stay centered on current position
G Location Geographic... 	Select a new geographic location

View Menu
View Zoom in 	Zooms view in
View Zoom out 	Zooms view out
View Configure ... 	Change view options

Help Menu

Popup Menu
The right click popup menu is context-sensitive, meaning it is different depending on what kind of object you click on. We list all possible popup menu items here, with the object type [in brackets].
[All] 	 Identification and type: The top three lines are devoted to the name(s) of the object, and its type. For stars, the Spectral Type is also shown here.
[All] 	 Center and Track: Center the display on this location, and engage tracking. Equivalent to double-clicking.
[All except Solar System] 	 Show 1st/2nd Gen DSS Image: The Digitized Sky Survey is an incredible resource: a photographic atlas of the entire sky. Through the miracle of the internet, you can download a photograph of any patch of sky. provides one-click access to this database. There are two generations of the Survey; the second generation is not yet complete, so you may get an error when requesting a 2nd Gen DSS image. Note that the image files are large, and may not be very aesthetic. If other images are available for your object, you should try them first.
[Messier, Solar System] 	 Show SEDS Information Page: The Students For the Exploration and Development of Space have a wonderful website, which includes very extensive information on the Solar System and on Messier objects. provides links to these pages in the popup menu.
[Messier] 	 Show SEDS Image: The main image of this Messier object from the SEDS.org information page.
[Some Deep-Sky objects] 	 Show HST Image: Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope periodically publish beautiful images from the HST as press releases. Some of these are pretty famous, and have become cultural icons. You can access them all through .
[Some Deep-Sky objects] 	 Show KPNO AOP Image: The Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona has a public outreach program called the Advanced Observing Program, which allows anyone to rent a 16-inch telescope located on Kitt Peak for a night. This program has been producing some of the finest amateur astronomy images ever taken, and we include over 100 of them in our database of links.
[All Named Objects] 	 Add Link...: This allows you to add your own custom links to the popup menu of any object. It opens a small window in which you enter the URL of the link, and the text you want to appear in the popup menu. There is also a pair of radio buttons which allow you to specify whether the URL is an image or an HTML document, so knows whether to launch the web browser or the image viewer.

Keyboard Commands
Arrow Keys 	 Use the arrow keys to pan the display. Holding down the key doubles the scrolling speed.
+ / - 	Zoom In/Out
0–9 	Center Display on a Solar System object.
0: Sun
1: Mercury
2: Venus
3: Moon
4: Mars
5: Jupiter
6: Saturn
7: Uranus
8: Neptune
9: Pluto
Z 	Center on the Zenith Point (straight up).
N 	Center above North horizon.
E 	Center above East horizon.
S 	Center above South horizon.
W 	Center above West horizon.
F1 	Open Handbook.
F 	Open Find Object Window.
G 	Open Change Location Window.
S 	Open Set Time Window.
T 	Toggle tracking.
Q 	Quit .

Mouse Commands
The current RA, Dec coordinates of the mouse cursor is always displayed in the status bar. Clicking the Mouse anywhere will identify the nearest object in the status bar. Double-clicking will center and track on the clicked location or object. Click and drag to pan the display. Right click to bring up the popup menu with detailed options for the clicked object.