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 theĀ 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.