Screen shots

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.

See it would depend on the liscence agreement with the program. It could say something like "This program is for personal use only and maps generated with it may not be published". That's why I know you're safe with KStars because it is released under the GPL so it has no such catches. Cartes du Ciel is free but not open source so it's liscence could have a clause against publication of maps it generates.

When I used to upload charts here I used Xephem, which runs on windows under cygwin.

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.

You should have no problem in using screen shots from Starry Night. Contact Imaginova - www.starrynight.com/ . Imaginova and in former guise as Sienna Software was always very helpful to me whenever I used Starry Night screenshots and quite happily allow you do so (advertising for them) provided you ask permission and show appropriate credit in a caption.

Thanks folks. The licence for Cartes du Ciel says '"Cartes du Ciel" is a freeware. You can freely install and use any number of copies for your personal or public usage and publish the result as you want.' So I'm gonna go assume that I can put diagrams it generates online so.

Now, to figure out how to work it!