Yesterday I posted a short review of the Redshift App. Of course there’s more to get. On my iPad I have the following astronomy related apps:
Planetarium apps: Redshift, Sky Safari, Star Walk,Solar Walk;
Atlas apps: Moon Globe HD, Mars Globe HD, Google Earth
Info/eBooks: NASA Visualization Explorer, ESA, Hubble Top 100, Journey to the Exoplanets.
Follow the various links for more information.
With Windows, Windows Mobile and Android in my home I had to add an Apple to the bunch. A few months ago I acquired an iPad2 because the Samsung Tab took too long to arrive and wasn’t available in 64GB (over here).
With the acquisition of Jobs’ legacy came a plethora of apps astronomy related. Almost all of them -paid and free – are worth your while if you’re into astronomy as a hobby.
Redshift was not only my first serious astronomy program, it was also the very first CD-ROM I bought, somewhere back in 1994 or 1995. So I was delighted when I found the app in the iTunes store. You get a full planetarium program with the possibility to scan the skies from your current position by simply pointing the iPad to the sky if necessary supported by the built-in camera. A feature most programs in the class have.
What they don’t normally have is the possibility to click and travel to an object you select, like in popular programs for the PC like Celestia.There’s some basic info about the object you selected, but there’s also a direct link to Wikipedia via an in-app browser.
Features include night vision, Telrad support, a variety of backgrounds, filters and of course a search function. Worth the money.
Okay, and now I want you to create it for a real OS, like Android.
iPAD lovers, this one’s for you for the moment. Feel the Universe at Your Fingertips.
Sitting in front of my laptop, nevertheless I’m blogging from the palm of my hand.
To be more specific: from my android phone. I hope I will be able to come up with a punchline fast, because otherwise it will take some time to end this post.
Maybe I should leave it where it is – the punchline I mean. Maybe I just need to stop. And just post this test message.
In the mean time I do do android, and I don’t do iPhone, but anyhow I’d like you to remind of Google Sky Map. It’s a smartphone app letting you browse the sky in a fun way.
It’s especially cool for people who don’t know their way around the evening sky like amateur and pro astronomers. Simply start the app, direct your phone to the sky where the unknown phenomenon is and look at your phone to see what star or planet you’re dealing with.
As a bonus the number of UFO sightings will diminish as soon as everybody can see that it’s Venus or Jupiter, not Plan 9 from Outer Space.
