                       "THE DIGITAL UNIVERSE"
               Astronomy Software for the Amiga Computer
                             1995/12/01


PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
-------------------
"The Digital Universe" is a complete astronomy program for the amateur
or professional observer.  It combines the advantages of traditional
"planetarium" programs with a massive hypertext multimedia encyclopedia
to create an effective tool which assists the user in observing and
learning about the heavens.  50,000 lines of code, more than 700 pages
of hypertext, and thousands of man-hours have gone into this product to
make it the most complete program of its class.  The software would not
have been possible without the generous assistance of countless
individuals from the Canadian Space Agency, the National Research
Council of Canada, NASA, JPL, NORAD, the European Space Agency, the
Bureau des Longitudes, the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, the
Russian Academy of Sciences, and several other organizations worldwide.


PRODUCT FEATURES
----------------
The following features by no means summarize all the things which
the software is capable of.  Due to space considerations, only the
major features can be summarized here.

- The following databases are integrated into the software:
    1.  Yale Bright Star (YBS) Catalogue of 9110 stars.
    2.  Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) Catalogue of over
        250,000 stars.
    3.  Messier's Catalogue of 110 deep sky objects (galaxies,
        nebulae, and clusters).
    4.  Sky & Telescope's NGC 2000.0 Catalogue of 13,226 deep sky
        objects.
    5.  Tom Lorenzin's "1000+" database of observing comments for
        over 2000 objects.
    6.  Jost Jahn's comet database containing 2298 cometary orbits.
    7.  Jost Jahn's minor planet database containing orbital
        information for thousands of asteroids.
    8.  Ted Molczan's and T. S. Kelso's orbital information for
        approximately 900 Earth-orbiting satellites.

- The software can generate accurate views of the night sky for any date
  from 100,000 BC to 100,000 AD.

- The package includes over 700 pages of hypertext, including an
  introduction to astronomy, dictionary of terms, biographies of famous
  people, celestial object descriptions, and summaries of every
  interplanetary spacecraft launched to date.

- More than 250 pictures are linked into the hypertext encyclopedia.
  They include images of all the planets, most of their satellites, all
  of the Messier objects, some NGC objects, and many miscellaneous
  images.  A few audio clips are incorporated as well.

- A context-sensitive help system, linked into the online encyclopedia,
  is integrated into the software.

- The user can select whether or not they want to consider effects such
  as precession, proper motion, nutation, aberration, or refraction.

- "The Digital Universe" uses the latest analytic theories of motion for
  the planets (VSOP87) and their satellites, resulting in typical
  accuracies of better than 1 arcsecond (1/3600th of a degree).

- The current analytic theory of motion for the moon (ELP2000-85) has
  been extended to improve its accuracy even further for times within
  a few hundred years of the present.  The extension was done specifically
  for "The Digital Universe".

- NORAD's SGP4 model of orbital motion is used to accurately predict
  the apparent positions and movement of Earth-orbiting satellites.
  "The Digital Universe" can work with standard "2-line" orbit files.
  Hundreds of satellites are included with the software, and information
  is provided to explain how to obtain future data sets as new
  satellites are launched and older orbits decay.

- Unlike many other astronomy programs which only consider the four
  brightest satellites of Jupiter, "The Digital Universe" accurately
  computes orbits for the moons of:
     Earth:   Our Moon
     Mars:    Phobos and Deimos
     Jupiter: Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, Amalthea, and Thebe
     Saturn:  Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Dione, Rhea, Titan, Hyperion,
              Iapetus, Phoebe, Telesto, Calypso, and Helene
     Uranus:  Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon
     Neptune: Triton and Nereid
     Pluto:   Charon
  When the software is zoomed in sufficiently to the planet of
  interest, the moons are rendered in their proper positions.

- When zoomed in to most planets and satellites, the object's
  orientation and phase is determined and a latitude/longitude grid
  superimposed if the user desires.  Maps of Venus, the Moon, Mars,
  Jupiter, and Saturn are incorporated into the software to generate
  accurate renditions of the appearance of these objects.  The ring
  systems of Saturn and Uranus are rendered.

- Supports the Amiga preferences printer.  Plots of star charts, etc.
  are far more than a simple screen dump.  The maximum resolution of
  the printer is used for outstanding clarity.
  
- The user can enter his or her own horizon, if desired.  Horizons for
  multiple observing sites can be configured.

- The user can select their location from a list of over 1000 cities,
  or enter their latitude, longitude, and altitude above sea level
  manually if higher accuracy is desired.

- Completely configurable IFF animations can be generated.  To mention
  just two examples from the infinite number of possibilities, you
  can see how stars move and constellations distort over centuries, or
  view how Saturn's rings change their orientation and appearance over
  time.  "The Digital Universe" can also save screen snapshots as ILBMs.

- A report generation feature lets you choose between a wide variety
  of data and customize tabular reports.  They may either be printed
  or saved to disk.

- Provided that you have sufficient chip memory, the screen upon which
  "The Digital Universe" runs can be of any size.  If the screen is
  larger that can fit on the monitor, you can scroll around simply by
  moving your mouse to the edge of the visible area.  A screenmode
  requester is provided to allow users to specify their particular
  monitor.

- All development was done entirely on Amiga.  It is not a port from
  the IBM or Macintosh world.  As a result, the software closely
  adheres to the Amiga style guidelines and behaves in the manner you
  would expect from Amiga software.


SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
-------------------
The software will run on any Amiga with Workbench 2.04 or greater, at
least 3 megabytes of memory, and a minimum of 11 megabytes of hard drive
space (17 megabytes of hard drive space is required for a full
installation).  Due to the extremely calculation-intensive nature of
this software, an accelerated Amiga and math chip (FPU) is strongly
recommended, though not required.


ORDERING INFORMATION
--------------------
There are two packages which may be of interest to the amateur
astronomer.  First and foremost is "The Digital Universe" software
itself, which comes provided with a 138 page user manual.  Secondly,
in the process of creating the package, more than 700 pages of a
hypertext multimedia encyclopedia was created (the electronic version
of which is shipped with the software).  However, since many individuals
prefer reading from paper than the computer screen, a printed version
of this information is also available.

The prices of "The Digital Universe" software and printed encyclopedia (as of
November 1, 1995) can be found in the following table.  All prices include
shipping and handling, and Canadian prices include 7% GST.  Note that the
prices for Canadian orders are quoted in Canadian dollars, UK orders are quoted
in British pounds, and US and other international orders are quoted in US
dollars.

If you are an educational user, or a member of an Amiga user group, you qualify
for a 15% reduction in the prices appearing below.  Contact us for further
details.  Prices and promotions are subject to change without notice.

             Canada (CAN $)   US (US $)*   UK (pounds)*  Inter.(US $)*
             --------------  ------------  ------------  -------------
 Software       149.95         129.95         89.95        139.95
 Encyclopedia    69.95          64.95         47.95         74.95

*NOTE: Since we must process all credit card transactions in Canadian dollars,
the US, UK, and international prices provided above should only be considered
as an estimate if you are using a credit card for payment. Due to exchange rate
fluctuations between the time of purchase and the time your credit card company
processes the transaction, the actual amount may be a few dollars more or less
than that quoted above.  However, the prices will be accurate for cheque or
money order transactions.

The Internet is not a secure network, and as a result determined thieves
can access some of the traffic passing through it.  We will not accept
any liability for the security of any information that you send us.  If
you would like to send your credit card information via email but are
concerned about the security risk, feel free to use PGP to encrypt your
message.  You will find our PGP public key at the bottom of this document.

Fill out the following information, and send it to us at any of our
contact addresses (provided at the end of this document).

                                Price per unit  Quantity   Total
                                --------------  --------  -------
"The Digital Universe" software
       and user manual            __________    ________  _______

Printed version of the hypertext
        encyclopedia              __________    ________  _______


                                                   TOTAL  _______

Payment can be made by check (drawn in Canadian dollars, US dollars, or
British pounds) , money order, Visa, or Mastercard.  If you are paying
by credit card, please provide the following information.  If
not, please send the required remittance as we are unable to process
COD orders.

Credit Card Type (Visa or Mastercard)_________________________________

Credit Card Number _______________________________

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       Expiry Date _______________________________

We also require your name and address for the registration, as well as
your shipping address (if different):

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email contact address (if any): ________________________________


CONTACT ADDRESSES
-----------------
If you would like to order "The Digital Universe" or have further
questions about the software, please contact us at:

Syzygy Research & Technology Ltd.
Box 75
Legal, AB
T0G 1L0
CANADA

Phone: (403) 961-2213

Internet email: sales@syz.com
                support@syz.com
           WWW: http://www.syz.com

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