Starry Night Enthusiast 5.0 Astronomy Software (Win/Mac)

I was an astronomy enthusiast without any tools, until now. This is a great program, runs smoothly, and is as fun and educational as everyone raves. With 700 million light years of space to explore, the point and click option makes any visit possible. I have not made any successful landings with the spaceship mode; that takes a little practice, but I have successfully collided with many deep space objects which has made my flying attempts rewarding all the same. So, I would recommend this program with great enthusiasm. May you have Clear Skies (An astronomer's blessing)

Do not think that, if you have a system even a bit up to date, that you can save money by installing SNE5. First of all, it will not install on Win 7 although you will get a message SAYING it did - but there are two disks of data, and after a couple minutes of staring at the install wizard, it tells you you're done - WITHOUT the second disk. But that's okay, the first disk ony installed three empty folders. Second, their tech support has been no help. Just received offers to sell me an up-to-date version. (Sorry, I'm too broke for that).

I don't want to misrepresent as it is a very nice astronomy program. But, I was to understand that it could be dialed back to show the sky at various points in time and it can, just not as far as I was hoping it would.

don't buy this yet. it's harder than heck to install--still trying to get it installed after 3 shots with everything else turned off-- and it has lots of foreign locations for you to designate your home location, but not much good for cities over 100,000 in the US. Want to install in Russia or Kazaksta or Ghana or Egypt or Peru (Talara Peru for example) or Argentina, go right ahead. But, for example, no locations in Indiana US such as Gary, Fort Wayne, South Bend, Terre Haute, Evansville, so they've left out a lot of people, but you can install in Evora in Portugal and Horsens in Denmark (nothing personal, I just wonder how may purchasers there may be in Evora (55,000) or Horsens (55,000), versus Fort Wayne (220,000)or South Bend (110,000+ 50,000 in next city) or Evansville (120,000). Also, registration of the product is difficult. So US purchasers, be aware that this is not necessarily US-friendly and it is not easy to install, as the US locations seem to be picked sort of at random. I had hoped for better understanding of their likely customer base. Maybe they are looking up into the skies instead of at who might likely buy their stuff. I have purchased earlier versions of this software and was hoping for an improvement.

Like the previous reviewer, my discs have just failed to install. Haven't the manufacturer's heard of product recalls? There should have been no faulty products remaining on retailers' shelves this Christmas, given that this is a known problem.