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Star Seeker, subtitled "a guide to the night sky", this is an introduction to astronomy as well as a source of information for the initiated.

As in Intermediate Astronomy from Sci-Soft, you need to input latitude, longitude, date and time in order to produce a plot of the visible sky. This is done quite quickly, and a menu allows you to construct constellation maps, get detailed info on chosen stars, produce a close-up, watch the stars move by defined time intervals, change the viewpoint or time, and output the results to a printer. A second program allows much the same facilities, though featuring the solar system. Here, the information is about the moon and planets.

The program is very well error trapped, and is user friendly, with a high standard of on-screen presentation, which exploits the Spectrum to the full. A limiting factor is that the only printer interface supported is the Kempston version not specified - or the ZX Printer. Equally odd is the offer of upgrading the program to disc, but not to Microdrive cartridge, and the failure to support serial printers through Interface 1.

Apart from a much less tortuous menu procedure, and the price, what distinguishes this from the SciSoft offering is the quality of the manual. This is full of technical terms, but these are all explained with the aid of tables, diagrams, screen-dumps and appendices. You will have to work, but the basic info is here, Not easy, but good.

D.M.