After installation, which is quite straightforward, you are presented with an animated audio/visual demonstration of the major points of Red Shift 5. This video clip loops back to the beginning upon completion; so you can watch it over and over again to familiarise yourself with the key features. You can also select each key feature from a menu on the right and the video will jump to that point and continue playing.

When you have watched this video sufficiently you can close the window, to be presented with a request to activate the software. There is no need to activate at this time, you can always do this later, but failure to activate means that you must always run the software with the CD ROM inserted in the CD drive, even if you have installed all the files to your PC. Once activated, this restriction is lifted.

When the program is loaded, you are presented with a demonstration of a typical scenario of the night sky. At first glance, it is not obvious that this is a demonstration, until you try to change the date, time or location. I think that perhaps it could be made clearer that you are initially in "demo" mode, by the inclusion of some kind of warning or advice window as to this fact. This I found a little confusing, as having watched a video clip of the features at installation time, I did not expect the software to open up into another "demo" mode. Once I had realised that I could not make changes to the settings, the penny finally dropped, and I closed the demonstration and opened a new window.

Now that you are in the "real" thing the whole gamut of features is open to you. There are so many functions and features available to take you on a journey round the universe or to a different time that I would imagine the average user will need to spend a good many hours actually learning how to use the program. You can change your location on Earth, or indeed, even change your location in space and view the heavens from Jupiter or somewhere like the Cassini spacecraft. You can change the date and time and view the night sky as it looked 6000 years ago or far into the future. You are even able to download updates to the catalogue of astronomical objects and satellites.

Once you have mastered the basics and filled in or selected various option boxes and menus, you can make a recording of your journey through space and save this for playback later. This could be a useful tool for creating a presentation to accompany a talk about astronomy at an astronomical society meeting or suchlike.

In conclusion, I would say that the learning curve for this software is quite steep and lengthy to get the full benefits from it's use although the basics of viewing the sky from your home location can be mastered in a few minutes. If you are prepared to put in the hours needed to learn it's full capabilities this piece of software will give you many times that back in enjoyable roaming of the universe. I can recommend this software to anyone who wants just that bit more than astronomical software that only gives graphical representations of the skies as seen from Earth.

President
Manchester Astronomical Society