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[ This was submitted by Dan Charrois, chief programmer for the ]
[ package and president of the distributing company.  -Dan Z.  ]

TITLE

     The Digital Universe


COMPANY

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

     email: support@syz.com
            sales@syz.com

       WWW: http://www.syz.com


AUTHOR

     Syzygy Research & Technology Ltd.


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.

     Until October 31, 1995, Syzygy Research & Technology Ltd. will
     supply "The Digital Universe" at a special introductory offer.
     See the "PRICE" section below for details.

     The following list by no means summarizes 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.


SPECIAL 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.


AVAILABILITY

     The software can be purchased directly from:

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

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

     Please include your name and address for shipping purposes as
     well as the name and address for the registration, if different.
     As well, if you are paying by Visa or Mastercard, do not forget
     to include your credit card number, expiry date, and cardholder's
     name.

     Keep in mind that 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 message.

     People who wish to contact us (Syzygy Research and Technology)
     by telephone to make orders of the software can do so at
     (403) 961-2213.


PRICE

     There are two products relating to "The Digital Universe" which
     can be ordered.  In addition to the software package and user
     manual, a printed version of the hypertext encyclopedia of
     astronomy is also available.  Their prices 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, whereas US and
     International orders are quoted in US dollars.

     Payment can be made by cheque, money order, Visa, or Mastercard.

     These figures will only remain valid until October 31, 1995 at
     which time the introductory period will expire and the prices
     will increase by approximately 50%.

                          Canada (CAN $)    US (US $)*   Inter.(US $)*
                          --------------  -------------  -------------
Software and User Manual      114.95          89.95          99.95
700 page printed Encyclopedia  49.95          44.95          54.95

     *NOTE: Since we must process all credit card transactions in
     Canadian dollars, the US 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.


DISTRIBUTABILITY

     "The Digital Universe" is commercial software, copyright 1995
     by Syzygy Research & Technology Ltd.

     A demo vesion of "The Digital Universe" is available from
     Aminet with the URL
     ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/biz/demo/Dig_Universe.lha

OTHER

     If you would like to learn more about "The Digital Universe",
     or would like to see some sample screen snapshots and animations,
     please feel free to connect to our Web site with the URL:
                  http://www.syz.com
     or send email directly to support@syz.com.

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-- 
Syzygy Research & Technology Ltd.     | Creators of "The Digital Universe" for
Box 75, Legal, AB, T0G 1L0 Canada     |            Amiga computers
WWW: http://www.syz.com               |
email: sales@syz.com, support@syz.com |   113 deg 35' 28"W, 53 deg 56' 51"N
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