Software Bisque, Inc. (formerly named ''Computer Assist Services'') is a corporation based in

Golden, Colorado Golden is a home rule city that is the county seat of Jefferson County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 20,399 at the 2020 United States Census. Golden lies along Clear Creek at the base of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountain ...

that develops robotics telescope mounts and accessories and publishes

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. ...

used in

astronomy Astronomy () is a natural science that studies astronomical object, celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and chronology of the Universe, evolution. Objects of interest ...

. It was founded in 1984 by current president and

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especiall ...

, Stephen M. Bisque.

History

Bisque initially developed and marketed custom financial

and also sold a

DOS DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems. DOS may also refer to: Computing * Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel * Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicat ...

-based astronomy program named '' TheSky''. At that time, the company was based in Bisque's home in Golden,

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...

. In 1990, Bisque hired his brothers Thomas, Daniel and Matthew. Together they ported TheSky for DOS to

Windows 3.0 Windows 3.0 is the third major release of Microsoft Windows, launched in 1990. It features a new graphical user interface (GUI) where applications are represented as clickable icons, as opposed to the list of file names seen in its predeces ...

. In 1992, ''TheSky for Windows'' was released. The product has been under continuous development since it was first released in the early 1980s; the current version is known as TheSkyX.

Products

Software Bisque has since developed and sold many astronomy-related products, including: * TheSky, TheSkyX Astronomy Software, Camera Add On, Dome Add On, and TPoint Add On * TheSky Pocket Edition for

Windows Mobile Windows Mobile is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones and personal digital assistants. Its origin dated back to Windows CE in 1996, though Windows Mobile itself first appeared in 2000 as Pock ...

devices *CCDSoft, a program for the acquisition and development of

CCD CCD may refer to: Science and technology * Charge-coupled device, an electronic light sensor used in various devices including digital cameras * .ccd, the filename extension for CloneCD's CD image file * Carbonate compensation depth, a property o ...

images *

TPoint TPoint is computer software that implements a mathematical model of conditions leading to errors in telescope pointing and tracking. The model can then be used in a telescope control system to correct the pointing and tracking. Such errors are ty ...

for Windows, telescope analysis and pointing correction software *Orchestrate, a program for automating multiple astronomy devices, allowing fully automatic operation and data acquisition *Seeker, an

OpenGL OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics. The API is typically used to interact with a graphics processing unit (GPU), to achieve ha ...

three-dimensional solar system simulator *AutomaDome, astronomical dome control software *PrecisionPEC, periodic error correction modeling software *Paramount ME, Paramount ME II, Paramount MX, Paramount MYT German equatorial telescope mounts, and the Paramount Taurus equatorial fork mounts (models 400, 500 and 600), all models include the Paramount Software Suite for integrated software control on Mac, Windows and Linux operating systems *BisqueTCS, a dual-axis DC servomotor telescope motion control system Amateurs have discovered over 500 new objects (including

comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process that is called outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or Coma (cometary), coma, and sometimes also a Comet ta ...

s, minor

planet A planet is a large, rounded astronomical body that is neither a star nor its remnant. The best available theory of planet formation is the nebular hypothesis, which posits that an interstellar cloud collapses out of a nebula to create a ...

s, supernovas, and cataclysmic

variable star A variable star is a star whose brightness as seen from Earth (its apparent magnitude) changes with time. This variation may be caused by a change in emitted light or by something partly blocking the light, so variable stars are classified as e ...

s) using these products.

References

External links

* {{official website, bisque.com Software companies based in Colorado Companies based in Golden, Colorado Software companies of the United States