Android Apps Offer - Star Chart

[RoofTops]

Google are doing special offers on some Android apps at the moment and I recently downloaded a thing called Star Chart for the price of just 12p.

It does not seem to come with any instructions and it took me a while to get it working correctly - the trick is to go into the menu and get the thing to find your location. After that you just hold your Android 'phone up to the sky and the stars you are looking at are there on the screen with names. Once it has found your location by GPS it is very accurate.

It also shows the planets and moon in their correct place - for example Jupiter is near the moon in the early evening at the moment.

Best of all of course, you don't actually have to go outside into the cold as it will work indoors once it has your location and if you point it downwards you can see right through the Earth and see the stars in the southern hemisphere!

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

Proving the theory that beekeepers are all tighter than a ducks whatsit, have you tried the free Google Sky Map in comparison? Wouldn't want to waste 10p (Star Chart has come down in price)

 

[JamezF]

On a related note, if you're after something similar for the PC (and the iPad, I believe), Stellarium is free and excellent.

James

 

[Tom Bick]

Roof Tops you could have got if free from Google they call it Google Sky Map.

It is a fantastic app great fun, nearly walked into the canal the other day walking the dog whilst pointing my phone looking for all the stars.

 

[Bee-Key-Pur]

I use them on the boat, phone apps and pc software to identify which stars are available on the eastern horizon for an astro star fix.
It helps when you know what star you are looking at. You can go the long route to identfy them using admiralty tables, but star charts are much faster...

 

[For want of a better word]

All those wasted hours /days/weeks/months... years even studying for RYA Ocean Navigator..
and they put it as an app.....


but when the batteries run down

 

[RoofTops]

Bu**er. Wasted 12p!

 

[Headnavigator]

All those wasted hours /days/weeks/months... years even studying for RYA Ocean Navigator..
and they put it as an app.....


but when the batteries run down

Yup, come the day when the power runs out, man with pencil, paper and brain will be king. (Or woman=Queen!)

 

[JamezF]

How well do you actually need to know the stars for ocean navigation (assuming you don't have google sky map or something similar to identify them for you)? Would learning the thirteen zodiacal constellations be enough? I'd not have thought that should be too hard.

James

 

[Headnavigator]

How well do you actually need to know the stars for ocean navigation (assuming you don't have google sky map or something similar to identify them for you)? Would learning the thirteen zodiacal constellations be enough? I'd not have thought that should be too hard.

James

Not hard at all for anyone practised in learning. Though I get worried that we're going to lose our abilities to remember large quantities of information in a generation or two, with everything stored and retrieved electronically. For example think back to pre-mobile days: many of us knew and could recall anything up to 500 names and associated phone numbers instantly, now if you ask most people their own phone number they have to look it up!

 

[Bee-Key-Pur]

All those wasted hours /days/weeks/months... years even studying for RYA Ocean Navigator..
and they put it as an app.....


but when the batteries run down

Yep, thats what you learn taking ocean yacht masters and you still do if take your captains certificate.

I used astro all the time in the 70s and 80s, but when gps came out after satnav, we all used it.
But I still use astro for the first half of any ocean crossing, just to keep my hand in, but I used gps for the second half, when we made a landing, because it's more acurate and we arrived at the place we were headed for, doesnt always happen with astro navigation...

 

[JamezF]

Though I get worried that we're going to lose our abilities to remember large quantities of information in a generation or two, with everything stored and retrieved electronically. For example think back to pre-mobile days: many of us knew and could recall anything up to 500 names and associated phone numbers instantly, now if you ask most people their own phone number they have to look it up!

I've always maintained that not being able to remember your own phone number is no big deal. It's not often I need to ring myself up, after all

(Actually, I do at least find it easy to remember my mobile number because I've had it for about fifteen years and was allowed to choose it at the time I bought my first phone. It only contains five different digits and most of those are pairs or triples.)

James

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

Too cloudy to use in anger last night, but it correctly identified the Moon!

Looks like it will be great fun for those starlit winter walks home post pub. Thanks for the headsup Rooftops.