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effect by changing the "saturation" value. It defaults to 100%, full color saturation. Turn it to, say, 50%, and the stars will appear to be somewhat more realistically colored. The "blurring" option is another gesture toward realism. Set it to a non-zero value, and Guide will draw stars with softer edges, making them look a little more circular. A value of 1 to 3 is usually considered visually pleasing. As with many of the settings in this dialog, though, your personal preferences may be very different. 7b: The Data Shown dialog First, a very important tip: if you see an object on the screen, and wish to turn it off, or change its color, or change the fields of view at which it is displayed, the simplest thing to do is almost always to just click on it with the right mouse button. You will get a small dialog box describing that object, and a "Display" button. Clicking on this will lead you to the controls for that type of object. (For example, right-click on a galaxy, then on "Display", and you can adjust such things as the limiting magnitude for display of galaxies.) This is an immensely simple and powerful way to deal with objects that are being shown on the screen. But if galaxies (for example) are currently turned off, you're obviously unable to click on one in order to turn galaxies on. In such cases, you need to use the Data Shown dialog. It's also convenient if you want to change the display of many types of object at once. In the Data Shown dialog, you are given a list of fifteen classes of objects controlled by the Data Shown menu/dialog: Messier NGC + IC Galaxies Nebulae Planets Variables NSV Open clusters Asteroids Gal Clusters Comets Globulars Planetaries Dark Nebulae Satellites Each object class is followed by buttons to turn that class "on", "off", "auto", or "fixed". When a particular class of objects is turned On, all objects of that class will be shown, regardless of
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