Screen shots

Just looking for some advice...

Supposing one had a webpage about astronomy, dealing specifically with what to see in the night sky, and wished to add diagrams showing where to find the planets etc - does anyone know of any planetarium type programs that screenshots can be taken from without getting me into trouble?!

I'm assuming I can't take them from Starry Night, but what about free or shareware programs? Is there any legal problems there does anyone reckon? Or better yet is there even a program someone's come across that encourages people to take screen grabs of it for diagramatic purposes?

Thanks in advance.

Shoudl be no problem with true FreeWare programs. If you have access to Linux KStars would be the way to go as it's Free & Open Source Software so is free as in beer! If you're on the Mac then the same advice goes, you can install KStars via Fink. Finally, if you're on Windows your best bet is probably Cardes du Ciel unless Cygwin will let you run KStars.

Hi Iridium,

I know that Cartes du Ciel, an excellent freeware charting program, see www.stargazing.net/astropc/ has a specific function to create a BMP or JPG graphic file.

You also have the option of grabing a full screen image of whatever is on the screen (except for videos) on a windows PC. Just press the Ptint screen button, open your graphics program and paste the clipboard contents as a new image. Then just trim out what you want.

As to the legalities, I think that as long as you credit the program used there should not be a problem.

Hmmm, I often wondered about this issue. Never fully reached a conclusion on it though.
If I write a letter, do I need to credit Microsoft for producing the software?
For each message I write on this website, do I need to credit Firefox in every post I write?
Personally, I don't think there would be any legal issues. However, I guess it would be polite to add a footnote indicating the author of the program used.

Bart (and all other Penguin lovers),
Just noticed that the new version 3.0 (Beta) of Cartes du Ceil is available for Linux as well as Windows. See www.ap-i.net/skychart/index.php

Bart (and all other Penguin lovers),
Just noticed that the new version 3.0 (Beta) of Cartes du Ceil is available for Linux as well as Windows. See www.ap-i.net/skychart/index.php

Sweet .... will have to give that a try!