Skip to Content

Free TUAW iPhone app -- try it now!
AOL Tech

telescope posts

Filed under: Software, Education, Odds and ends

Hope you got 'em while they were hot -- Carina Voyager and SkyGazer

by Steven Sande (RSS feed) on Jul 20th, 2009

Over the weekend, we posted information about Carina Software's software giveaway to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Today (July 20th) is the day, and for a limited time this morning you could get their two Mac applications (Voyager and SkyGazer) for one cent each. That's right - US$0.01 for each app. The iPhone / iPod touch versions are available for free downloads from the App Store, and my colleague Mel Martin is posting about those apps. The Mac downloads were stopped at 9 AM PDT at the request of Carina's web hosting provider, as the huge number of downloads were overwhelming their available bandwidth.

Mel and I felt it would be a great idea to let TUAW readers get more information about these applications, so we're doing a pair of First Look posts to fill you in on the details. Even if you didn't get the low-cost downloads, you might be inspired by the Apollo anniversary to purchase one of these applications at the usual price. Be sure to read Mel's look at the iPhone apps here.

The two applications have different target audiences. SkyGazer is aimed at the beginning or novice astronomer, and at educators who can use the program to demonstrate astronomical principles. Voyager, on the other hand, is a full-functioned astronomy package for the professional or serious amateur astronomer, and includes such important features as the ability to control computer-driven scopes. Read along for more information about these two guides to the night sky.

Continue reading “Hope you got 'em while they were hot -- Carina Voyager and SkyGazer”

Tags: astronomy, mac, software, telescope

Filed under: Software, Education

WorldWide Telescope: Works great on a Mac (if you have Windows)

by Robert Palmer (RSS feed) on May 19th, 2008

You might have heard that Microsoft Research has released WorldWide Telescope (WWT), it's software to devour the universe whole provide a fun way to browse the planets and stars.

The BBC mentioned that you can run WWT on your Mac ... so long as you have Windows on your Mac. Sigh. VMWare helpfully gave the system a try, though, and found it worked great (and even posted a video about it.)

I fired up the ol' Boot Camp and saw it wasn't bad. It boasts high-resolution photography of many parts of the sky, and is reasonably easy to use (for a Microsoft product). There were some weird, annoying flicker problems, but I'll chalk that up to the fact that it's beta software on a MacBook with a pokey graphics card.

As an amateur astronomer with his own 10-inch Dob (that's right, ladies), I tend to use astronomy software less as a casual browsing tool, but more to find interesting things in the sky on a particular night. And for that, WWT ain't great. You won't find any satellites (like Iridium flares) in WWT. Worst of all -- there's no horizon I could easily find. (Found it, thanks to commenter dh!) So good luck trying to find that fuzzy thing next to the blue thing when it's under your feet.

The Mac, however, is blessed with a great variety of native astronomy tools, most of which are free. Stellarium is excellent, free planetarium software. It's worth noting that Google Earth has a spiffy sky tool built-in, too. Last but not least, Starry Night Pro is the king of all astronomy software (and my favorite), but is a little spendy at $150.

Tags: astronomy, microsoft, starrynight, stellarium, telescope, worldwide

Filed under: Internet Tools, Widget Watch

Widget Watch: Telescope, a Basecamp widget

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on Jul 31st, 2006


After blogging the Basecamp widget, TUAW reader Mike Jacobsen wrote in to let us know about a Basecamp widget he recently launched for Dashboard, called Telescope. For now, Telescope appears to be more of a monitoring widget than anything, allowing users to:
  • List current projects
  • View last 25 updates (to-dos, milestones, messages, comments, files)
  • Filter update list by project
  • View next milestone for each project
Mike also blogged his experience with building the widget in Dashcode, and links other projects that have either produced products, such as Packrat and other Basecamp utilities. He even lists 37Signals APIs and resources in case you're a developer looking to hop on the bandwagon.

It's good to see more work being done on utilities that interact with these web services in creative new ways. My personal favorite is still Packrat for Backpack, largely because of its offline and syncing capabilities.

Tags: 37signals, basecamp, dashboard, telescope, widget, widgetwatch

Tip of the Day

Reply in the Mail.app with a specific quote.
Select the text you want quoted and then hit the reply button.
Only your selected text will copied to the reply email.

Learn More

Follow us on Twitter!

TUAW flickr Pool

www.flickr.com
 TUAW [Cafepress]

Featured Galleries

DNC Macs
Macworld 2008 Keynote
Macworld 2008 Build-up
Google Earth for iPhone
Podcaster
Storyist 2.0
AT&T Navigator Road Test
Bento for iPhone 1.0
Scrabble for iPhone
Tom Bihn Checkpoint Flyer Briefcase
Apple Vanity Plates
Apple booth Macworld 07
WorldVoice Radio
Quickoffice for iPhone 1.1.1
Daylite 3.9 Review
DiscPainter
Mariner Calc for iPhone
2009CupertinoBus
Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D
MLB.com At Bat 2009
Macworld Expo 2007 show floor

 

Most Commented On (7 days)

Recent Comments

More Apple Analysis

More from AOL Money and Finance

AOL Radio TUAW on Stitcher