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Rukl moon atlas3/19/2023 ![]() If you want the complete rundown, you need to trot over to the program’s website, but, in brief, what you have in Virtual Moon Atlas is a beautifully detailed computer model of our favorite satellite. What’s so great about VMA beyond the fact that it don’t cost nuttin'? Almost everything. Patrick, who many of you know from his stand-out planetarium program Cartes du Ciel, teamed with noted Lunar observer Christian Legrand to create Virtual Moon Atlas, VMA, which is currently in version 4.0. Not until Patrick Chevalley turned his hand to developing a Lunar atlas soft. As the new century began, several Lunar programs aimed at amateurs appeared. Page scans work OK, but what I really wanted was not just a book on disk, but a TheSky or Megastar or Starry Night for the Moon. That began to change recently, with several of these resources becoming available on CD and DVD (one of the most notable of these, in addition to the LAC, being the LOPAM, the Digital Lunar Orbiter Photographic Atlas of the Moon). The “professional” Lunar atlases, things like the Lunar Aeronautical Charts (LAC), developed for the Apollo program, were usually locked away in government archives and observatory libraries out of reach of greedy amateur fingers. ![]() Those of us serious about the deep sky usually move on from SA2000 to more detailed atlases like Uranometria, though. It most certainly is a landmark work it’s just that it is the Lunar equivalent of Sky Atlas 2000, which is also a great book. Surprisingly, however, given its quality and near-legendary status among amateurs, “Rukl” is also fairly quickly outgrown by the dedicated student of mysterious Hecate. Antonin Rukl’s time-honored (and currently out of print, though still available) Atlas of the Moon. But once a Lunar observer moved beyond fledgling status what was there? Well, there was Rukl. Oh, sure, there were and are some fairly good general interest and even a few observer-oriented Moon guides. Until recently there wasn’t much in the way of resources to guide a serious student of Luna. Heck of it was, though, my growing fascination with Selene was stymied at every turn. I was becoming seriously interested in this little world, both as a visual observer and as an imager (especially with the coming of the webcam revolution). Earth’s faithful companion has drawn me to her for over forty years thanks to her lustrously beautiful, ever-changing face.Įventually I found myself moving beyond quick glances at a gibbous Moon and idle staring at the occasional Lunar eclipse. The first thing I looked at with my first telescope was the Moon, and I never quite got over her. I know most of y’all probably associate Uncle Rod more with deep sky observing and imaging with SCTs than you do with “serious” Lunar observing, but, truth be known, I’ve had an ongoing love affair with graceful, silv’ry, Diana. Not only is it great, a breakthrough of sorts, it’s free-just my kinda software. What theheck is Ol’ Unk going on about now? What I’m going on about, muchachos, is something you should be going on about too, one of the best pieces of astronomy software to hit my hard drive in many a Moon, Patrick Chevalley and Christian Legrand’s Virtual Moon Atlas. If you’re a Lunar observer, you really oughta if'n you don't.
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