Adding Your Own Images and/or Multimedia Files to the Virtual Sky

TheSky6 gives you tools that can be used to associate pictures, text, sound, or video with celestial objects on the Virtual Sky.

Step-By-Step Procedure to Associate Images With Celestial Objects

The following procedure describes how to associate a picture with a celestial object, (or equatorial coordinate) on the Virtual Sky by creating a Sky Database that uses Image Symbols. This same procedure can be used to associate text, sound or video to celestial objects on the Virtual Sky.

Figure 1: Sample Hubble Photograph of gaseous pillars in M16

1. Turn off TheSky6's default photographs. TheSky6 displays up to 100,000 pictures of celestial objects. You'll want to turn them off before proceeding to avoid confusion. To do so, click View | Display Explorer and clear the check boxes under Image Groups. Next, click View | Non-stellar options, and then clear the Plot DSS Thumbnails of NGC, IC, PGC and PLN objects option and then click OK. All default pictures are now turned off.
2. Create a folder on your hard drive to store the images that you want to have an Image Symbol. For this exercise, create a folder named "C:\My Images" on your hard drive.
3. We'll associate the above photograph to the object M16 in TheSky6. First, we need to save this photograph to your computer. Right-click on the above image, click "Save Picture As" to display the Save Picture dialog box.
4. In the Save Picture dialog box, enter the name "M16 Pillars.gif", then navigate to the folder "C:\My Images" and then click OK. You should now have one image named M16 Pillars.gif in the "C:\My Images" folder.

To associate this photograph with the celestial object "M16" (or NGC 6611), we will create a Sky Database that has the "Image" celestial object type with the help of the User-Defined Data command. This procedure allows you to associate as many photographs with celestial objects as you wish.

5. From TheSky6, click Data | User-Defined Data.

6. On the User-Defined Data dialog box, select Nearest Non-Stellar in the Snap To list. Select Image in the Object Type List.

Figure 2: User-Defined Data dialog box configured to add objects using the Image object type.

7. Click Close.

8. Click Edit | Find, enter the text "M16" into the Find text box and then click Center and Frame. The object M16 should now be in the center of the Virtual Sky.

9. Move the mouse over M16, and then press CONTROL+CLICK to add a user-defined object. You should see an Image Symbol appear on the Virtual Sky, in the center of M16.

Figure 3: M16 after adding a user-defined "Image" object.

10. Click Data | User-Defined Data to change the properties of this user-defined object. Enter the text "M16 Pillars.gif" the Label text box. This will associates a file name of a picture with this user-defined object. See Figure 4.

Figure 4: User-Defined Data dialog box showing the file name of the picture

in the Label text box, and the My Image Symbols.txt text file.

11. Next, click the Browse button to display the Save As dialog box. Navigate to the "C:\My Images" folder, then enter My Image Symbols.txt into the File Name text box, and then click Save.

12. On the User-Defined Data dialog box, click Export. When asked if you wish to remove the user-defined data, click No. A text file is created in the My Images folder that stores information about this user-defined object. Figure 5 shows the contents of the exported text file.

;;Copyright, Software Bisque, Inc.

>LABEL 1,30

>ALIAS 19,35

>RAHOURS 37,47

>DECDEGREES 49,60

>CATALOG CLASS=OBJECTS

>LOADMEMORY

>IDENTIFIER User-Defined Data

>OBJECT TYPE 41

   1              NGC 6611          18.31333333 -13.79722222 30.00 M16 Pillars.gif

Figure 5: Contents of the exported "My Image Symbols.txt" text file.  Notice that this text file contains the

name of the object (NGC 6611), its equatorial coordinates, magnitude, and t

he file name of the associated picture.

12. Click Close.

13. We'll now use the exported text file from Step 11 to create a general-purpose Sky Database that TheSky6 will use to display the Image Symbol for the "M16 Pillars.gif" photograph. Click Data | Import to display the Import dialog box.

14. On the Import dialog box, click Browse to display the Open dialog box.

15. On the Open dialog box, navigate to the folder C:\My Images, select the text file My Image Symbols.txt and then click Open.

Figure 6: Import dialog box showing the My Image Symbols.txt file.

16. Click Define Fields to display the Define Fields dialog box. This dialog box lets you define the format of the ASCII text file. The first field to define is the picture name. To do so, click on the Columns text box, then enter the text 68-95 and then click the File Name button. Or, highlight columns 68-95 by clicking and dragging the mouse in the text box at the bottom of the Define Fields window. Press and hold the SHIFT key, and then click the File Name button to verify that you've correctly identified that columns 68-90 contain the name of the picture.

Figure 7: Defining the position of the picture file name in the text file.

17. As a convenience, you may also wish to define an Alias field for this object. To do so, highlight columns 19-30 and then click the Alias button.

Figure 8: Defining the position of the picture file name in the text file.

18. Once these two fields are defined, click OK to close the Define Fields dialog box.

19. On the Import dialog box, click Compile. When prompted to automatically load this database, click Yes.

20. Click View | Display Explorer, navigate to the Reference Objects | Other Reference node, and then mark the Image celestial object type.

The Virtual Sky will now show an Image Symbol for object M16. Click on this Image Symbol to display our photograph of the file M16 Pillars.gif.

Now that you've created the My Image Symbols Sky Database for a single picture, use can easily add additional photographs.

Adding Additional Photographs to the Sky Database

For every object that you want to associate a picture:

1. Make sure that the User-Defined Data is configured to add objects of type Image, and then press CONTROL+CLICK on the object.

2. Click Data | User-Defined Data, and then enter the file name of the photograph that will be associated with this Image Symbol.

Once this process is completed for each object,

1. Click Data | User-Defined Data.

2. Click Export to generate a text file that contains multiple user-defined objects and then click Close.

3. Click Data | Import, click Browse, and then select the text file created in Step 2 and then click Open.

4. On the Import dialog box, click Compile. When prompted to add the database, click No, since its already been added.

Or,

1. Manually add objects by editing the "My Image Symbols.txt" text file.

;;Copyright, Software Bisque, Inc.

>LABEL 1,30

>ALIAS 19,35

>RAHOURS 37,47

>DECDEGREES 49,60

>CATALOG CLASS=OBJECTS

>LOADMEMORY

>IDENTIFIER My Image Symbols

>OBJECT TYPE 41

   1              NGC 6611          18.31333333 -13.79722222 30.00 M16 Pillars.gif

   2              NGC 1             0.12531     +27.7372     30.00 NGC1 Photo.gif

   3              NGC 2             0.12565     +27.7069     30.00 NGC2 Photo.gif

   4              NGC 2254          6.60134     +7.6730      30.00 NGC2254 Photo.gif

   5              NGC 4235          12.28961    +7.1671      30.00 NGC4235 Photo.gif

2. Click Data | Import, click Browse, and then select the text file created in Step 1 and then click Open.

3. On the Import dialog box, click Define Fields and then define the File Name and Alias fields click Compile. When prompted to add the database, click No, since its already been added.

This allows you to add hundreds, thousands, millions or more of your own photographs.

The <TheSky6 Folder>\Data\Pictures\Anglo-Australian Observatory\AAO.TXT or <TheSky6 Folder>\Data\Pictures\Hubble Space Telescope\All Hubble Images.txt files are examples of text files that associate photographs with celestial objects.

The text below show a portion of the Anglo-Australian images text file.

>LABEL 62,90

>ALIAS 19,35

>RAHOURS 37,47

>DECDEGREES 50,60

>DECSIGN 49,49

>CATALOG CLASS=OBECTS

>LOADMEMORY

>IDENTIFIER Anglo Australian Images

>OBJECT TYPE 41

                  PGC21338           7.58538889 -46.92472222 cg4.jpg

                  ESO257-19          7.58538889 -46.92472222 cg4.jpg

                                     5.71666    -67.88333    henize-70.jpg

                                     5.71666    -67.88333    henize-70-wide.jpg

;Abell 1060

                  NGC3312           10.61730595 -27.56472250 abell1060.jpg

                  NGC3316           10.62705581 -27.59333416 abell1060.jpg

                  NGC3311           10.61202758 -27.52805634 abell1060.jpg

                  ESO501-47         10.62150000 -27.46833333 abell1060.jpg

;

;Tarantula Nebula

                  NGC2070            5.64638333 -69.08519444 NGC2070.jpg

                  NGC2070            5.64638333 -69.08519444 NGC2070b.jpg

                  NGC2070            5.64638333 -69.08519444 NGC2070c.jpg

                  NGC2070            5.64638333 -69.08519444 NGC2070d.jpg

                  NGC2070            5.64638333 -69.08519444 ngc2070-uks.jpg

;SN 1987A

                  NGC2044            5.59833333 -69.18333333 sn1987a-#2.jpg

                  NGC2044            5.59833333 -69.18333333 sn1987a-#3.jpg

                  NGC2044            5.59833333 -69.18333333 sn1987a-#4.jpg

                  NGC2044            5.59833333 -69.18333333 sn1987a-#3.jpg

                  NGC2044            5.59833333 -69.18333333 ngc2070c.jpg

                  NGC2044            5.59833333 -69.18333333 SN1987a-halo.jpg

;Eagle Nebula

                  NGC6611           18.31507778 -13.84800000 ngc6611.jpg

                  NGC6611           18.31507778 -13.84800000 ngc6611b.jpg

                  NGC6611           18.31507778 -13.84800000 ngc6611-wide.jpg

;Sombrero Galaxy

                  NGC4594           12.66647222 -11.62277778 NGC4594.jpg

                  NGC4594           12.66647222 -11.62277778 NGC4594-wide.jpg

;

                  NGC4486           12.51376944  12.38994444 ngc4486.jpg

                  NGC4486           12.51376944  12.38994444 ngc4486b.jpg

                  NGC4755           12.89333333 -60.33372222 ngc4755.jpg

                  PGC17223           5.39294444 -69.75611111 PGC17223.jpg

                  PGC17223           5.39294444 -69.75611111 PGC17223b.jpg

                  NGC6559           18.16666667 -24.10000000 NGC6559.jpg

                  NGC6618           18.34666667 -16.18333333 NGC6618.jpg

Troubleshooting Tips

• If pressing CONTROL+CLICK fails to add an object (you should hear an audible "beep"), then TheSky6 cannot locate a non-stellar object near the mouse cursor. Make sure that the celestial object to which your trying to associate a picture is visible.

• To make sure that Image Symbols are visible, click View | Display Explorer, navigate to the Reference Objects | Other Reference node, and then mark the Image celestial object type.

• The text file that holds information about the picture file name and location MUST be "space" delimited. That is, DO NOT separate fields with tabs or other characters.