It's cold, it's cloudy and it's wet - why bother going outside? John Kennedy turns his Amiga into a virtual telescope.
Remember, Space is big - really big. You may think it's a long way to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts in Space. If you plan on Hitch-hiking your way around the Galaxy, you'll need a good map: and The Digital Universe is likely to be the best you'll find. This program has been developed solely on the Amiga, and much to the dismay of jealous PC and Mac owners, it's a staggering program.
 Most of the planets are displayed so you can see their phase. You can also check on the position of the moons and rings of Saturn and Uranus.
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The numbers may be big, but the detail is still very much down to earth. Before you start to use the program properly you'll need to enter your location, your altitude and for best results, even the local air pressure. The Digital Universe will then display what you would see if you went out and looked up on a cloudless night.
Think of The Digital Universe as a window onto the Night Sky. You can move the window around the sky to see from any viewpoint, but you can also turn on the 'Time Machine' and set the exact time and date. This is not an astrology program, this is a scientific instrument, but you can still use it to see if there was a bright star over your house on the day you were born.
I suppose it's a bit like having Patrick Moore sitting beside you, because you can interrogate every object displayed on screen, and the more important ones will be linked with a hypertext reference. Many links lead to images and pages of background information.
Planetary information is particularly impressive, as when you "zoom in'' with your virtual telescope on the Moon, Venus, Mars, Jupiter or Saturn you see a drawing displaying the correct phase. The positions of the major moons of all the plane ts are displayed too: 29 in total.
Observing the moons and the planets' changing phases is made a great deal easier with the in-built animation facilities. You can define a set of parameters, and The Digital Universe will happily spool the images to disk for you in standard IFF format.
If you are already into astronomy, then this is an essential purchase. It is more up-to-date than previous Amiga programs and includes detailed and flexible support for artificial satellites and asteroids. The company World Wide Web site contains updates as new objects are discovered or satellites launched. Sending a star map to your printer before heading out with your 'scope for the evening can save you hours of searching time and help you find new objects. The report generation is very flexible, so you can customise your own tables to fit in with the way you work.
Even if you are merely have a passing interest in Astronomy, The Digital Universe is better than any book. It makes exploration interactive: you can zoom in by dragging the mouse and click on an object to bring up more information. The on-line hypertext help system allows you to browse through pages of text and diagrams on a range of subjects.
The only drawbacks to The Digital Universe are those imposed by the level of its performance. There are a lot of calculations going on in the background, so each time the screen is moved there is a delay as the new display is calculated. MUI is used to provide all the gadgets and menus, but if you fulfil the minimum hardware specifications there is no need to hold this against anyone. A fast Amiga with an FPU certainly makes a difference.
The Digital Universe is a very powerful program. It's fun, it's educational and even if you are an amateur of the outdoors or armchair variety it's a "must-have" accessory.
