An observatory in your pocket: Star Walk for iPhone and iPod touch

I've always had a fascination with astronomy. Even when I'm not lugging my telescope out to do deep sky work, I'm using my eyes and binoculars to see what's visible in the night sky. Now I can use my iPhone to help me figure out where some of the night objects are -- even when it's light outside.

VITO Technology has just released Star Walk (click opens iTunes), a US$4.99 astronomy app that shows you what's in the sky above. It has an internal database of almost 9,000 objects including the planets, various stars and clusters, and more.

While not for serious amateur astronomers, this is a great tool for anyone who is interested in knowing more about the universe they live in. There's a moon phase calculator, a time machine function to show you what the skies were like or will look like on any day. If you have an iPhone 3G, Star Walk uses GPS to automatically determine where you are on Earth to adjust the view. First-generation iPhone and iPod touch users can select their city from a list.

Star Walk should be a great app for teaching youngsters or yourself more about astronomy.

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Source: http://vitotechnology.com/en/products/star-walk.html

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iPhone App Store iPod touch

I've always had a fascination with astronomy. Even when I'm not lugging my telescope out to do deep sky work, I'm using my eyes and...

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yasmin khan

well i joined in cos this is an islamic website

November 08 2008 at 1:05 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

NetMage

Needs to add Messier objects and more moons and minor objects (Pluto, anyone? Ceres?)

Core location works for me with registered WiFi on 1G iPhone.

Awesome UI!

November 08 2008 at 11:35 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

etgeek

I would buy if it had a Iridium Flares calculator.
Something like placing a red dot in the area that the flash will take place, and a count down timer for the event. That would be a unique and super cool feature to include in a future release.

November 08 2008 at 11:30 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

moo

Um, why exactly can't first gen user use CoreLocation to determine what city we're in? Why would you need GPS for something so general.

November 07 2008 at 4:09 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to moo's comment

TuxToaster

I wondered the same thing. The developers quite possibly just wrote the app to check which model of phone was in use, and opted to prompt the user for a location rather than using triangulation.

While it seems silly, It stands to reason that maybe they figured you might not be in a cell area while using the app (many people like to stargaze away from the city), so it'd be quicker to enter in a location than wait for it to try (and fail) to find your location based on cell signal. Just a guess, anyways.

November 07 2008 at 4:38 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Rich

Great. But the guy who stole your Iphone when you were out ooohing and aaahing at the pinpricks of light can still make calls on your tab by using the emergency dialling feature. I think that might be more important news.

November 07 2008 at 3:44 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

3 replies to Rich's comment

Gary Fung

Steven Sande: did you change email address? You seem unreachable these days :(

November 07 2008 at 3:18 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

beercake

There is also StarMap out there for the iPhone - it's a bit more pricy, but I like it very much - as I'm also a amateur astronomer...

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=284408099&mt=8

November 07 2008 at 2:44 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

TuxToaster

Oooooh pretty stars :-)

Vaguely resembles Stellarium, which is a great open-source app for the desktop.
This would probably be handy for some impromptu star gazing.

November 07 2008 at 2:42 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply