SkyVoyager

Release 1.3 - now with Time Flow!

For the iPhone and iPod Touch

SkyVoyager is a powerful planetarium program for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It is designed for both beginners and advanced users. It contains a database of 300,000 stars to 10th magnitude, and 30,000 deep sky objects, including the entire NGC and IC catalogs. It renders the planets and moons in detail, using NASA mission imagery, and includes a database of several hundred asteroids, comets, and artificial satellites.

SkyVoyager accurately shows the sky from any location on Earth, at any time up to 100 years in the past or future. It is a precise astronomical calculator, computing the positions of solar system objects to sub-arcsecond precision with the latest JPL planetary ephemerides.

If you have an iPhone 3G S with a compass, SkyVoyager can show you the sky in same the direction that you're holding your phone. You can identify stars and planets by holding your phone next to them, and you can find any object in the sky by following an arrow that SkyVoyager points in its direction. SkyVoyager 1.2 also supports the accelerometer found in older iPhones and iPods, as well. Tilting the phone now shows you the sky at the same altitude angle that you're holding your phone.

The brand-new Time Flow feature lets you animate the night sky over periods from seconds to years, using simple VCR controls accessible from the main sky chart view. Follow the diurnal motion of the Sun, Moon, and stars over a single night. See Jupiter's moons revolve around the giant planet. Watch the planets pass through the constellations as they (and we!) orbit the Sun. View binary stars wheeling around each other over many years, compressed into a few seconds.

SkyVoyager also includes informative, plain-English descriptions of the constellations, planets, moons, stars, and deep sky objects. It contains hundreds of images from NASA space missions, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the world's foremost amateur and professional astro-photographers.

Finally, if you have a computer-controlled telescope, SkyVoyager can use the WiFi capabilities built into your iPhone or iPod Touch to point it in the sky. To do this, you will also need a WiFi-to-serial adapter; see the WiFi Scope Control page for more details.

SkyVoyager's simple user interface, and its ability to wirelessly control your telescope, make it an invaluable tool for exploring the heavens.

• Order
• FAQ

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Overview

SkyVoyager is exclusively available through the iTunes App Store, and runs on the iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3G S, and iPod Touch.

The download price is $14.99 (USD). The app weighs in at 40 MB; here's what you get with your purchase:

• 1 Sun
• 9 Planets (counting Pluto!)
• 22 Moons
• 88 Constellations
• 110 Satellites
• 298 Comets
• 327 Asteroids
• 1,418 City locations
• 18,497 Star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies
• 312,088 Stars

Educational Content

SkyVoyager doesn't just contain facts, figures, and graphics. It's an educational astronomy field reference, including:

• 37 Planet and Moon Descriptions
• 51 Constellation Prints
• 65 Reference Diagrams
• 88 Constellation Guides
• 144 Solar System Images
• 216 Deep Sky Object Images
• 508 Star Descriptions
• 514 Deep Sky Object Descriptions

The app includes extensive on-line help. It even contains the "Basic Concepts" chapter from our SkyGazer desktop software. SkyVoyager is a complete astronomy handbook that fits in your pocket!

WiFi Scope Control

SkyVoyager can use your iPhone or iPod's WiFi capability to control the following GoTo telescopes:

• Meade LX-200 Classic and GPS
• Meade LX-90, ETX, LXD, LX-400 ACF with AutoStar controllers
• Meade Magellan I and II
• Celestron Ultima 2000
• Celestron NexStar 5/8, 5i/8i, GPS, SLT, SE
• Celestron CGE, CGEM, CPC, SLT, EdgeHD
• Orion Sirius, Atlas, SkyView Pro
• SkyWatcher mounts with SynScan controllers
• iOptron SmartStar/MiniTower with GOTONova controllers (see note below)
• Takahashi Temma 2
• ServoCAT Argo Navis, Sky Commander, Losmandy DSC
• Astro-Physics GTO, Losmandy Gemini, Vixen SkySensor 2000

In order to communicate with your telescope, we've created SkyFi, a revoutionary device that lets your iPhone or iPod touch drive the scope using its built-in WiFi capability. You can also use our Voyager software, running on a Mac or PC with WiFi and a serial port. See the WiFi Scope Control page for more details.

iOptron telescope users please note: To control your SmartStar or MiniTower mounts with SkyVoyager, you'll need to use our Voyager software running on your Mac or PC as a WiFi-to-USB relay. These iOptron mounts cannot be used with our SkyFi wireless serial adapter, because they only provide a USB interface, not an RS-232 serial interface.

What's New in Release 1.3

The latest update to SkyVoyager is 1.3, released 3 December 2009. Here are the new features and bug fixes included in this release:

1. Time flow! You can now change the date and time, either continuously or in single steps, using VCR controls easily accessible from the main sky chart view.
2. Bright nebulae are now shown with contoured outlines. Galaxies are displayed at their correct shape and orientation.
3. The Help view now contains links to various astronomy web sites, and a built-in web browser lets you view them without leaving the app.
4. Binary stars are now shown at their correct separation and position angle, and will orbit each other as years go by, using time flow. Binary star position angles and separations are now correctly reported in the Object Info view.
5. Anti-aliased star drawing places stars more accurately on the screen. Stars now "twinkle" when moving the view or flowing time.
6. Numerous fixes to the telescope communication code, including a restored Readout Rate setting in the Telescope Communication settings. Black backgrounds were removed from Telescope Display settings table cells. You can now configure the SkyFi wireless adapter without leaving the SkyVoyager app.
7. A crash when computing moonrise/moonset times on days when moonrise/set does not actually occur has now been fixed.
8. The compass/altimeter are now temporarily disabled when you touch the screen, to allow swiping and zooming. They are re-enabled afterwards.
9. A bug in Settings > Coordinates view which prevented using Equatorial coordinates when the Use Altimeter switch was turned off, has now been fixed.
10. Corrected refraction formulae now provide accurate altitudes for objects near the horizon.
11. Updated descriptions for the Moon and a few bright stars.
12. The location displayed in the status bar sometimes incorrectly reverted to "Austin, TX" in previous versions. This has been fixed.

What's New in Release 1.2

SkyVoyager 1.2 was released on 5 August 2009. Here are the new features and bug fixes included in this release:

1. Requires iPhone OS 3.0 or higher.
2. Support for the compass in the iPhone 3G S, and the accelerometer in all iPhone and iPod Touch models. Please Note: for best results with the compass, turn the phone sideways to landscape mode. In portrait mode, when holding the phone at an angle near 45 degrees overhead, the compass becomes "confused". This is a hardware limitation which disappears when the phone is held sideways.
3. Cardinal direction markers are now visible against the daytime horizon when the Natural Sky option is turned on (in the Horizon & Sky view).
4. User-defined locations can now be saved, edited, and deleted in the Settings > Location view.
5. More than 109 new and updated deep sky object descriptions, and 30 new deep sky object images. Every Caldwell object now has a description.
6. Additional descriptions for 36 more stars, and numerous spelling/grammar errors corrected in all descriptions.
7. Star positions can now optionally be corrected for stellar proper motion in the Settings > Precession view, and their proper motions can be displayed in the Object Info view.
8. Fixed accuracy problems with earth-orbiting satellites. Fixed problem with local horizon coordinates not including the effects of precession.
9. New "Keep Alive" option in the Settings > Telescope Communication view maintains a continuous TCP connection to the WiFi network.
10. Support for SkyWatcher SynScan telescope controllers.

What's New in Release 1.1

SkyVoyager is 1.1 was released on 6 July 2009. Here are the new features and bug fixes included in this release:

1. Fixed Help crash in iPhone OS 3.0.
2. Better handling of Landscape <-> Portrait mode rotation for main Sky Chart and Object Info views.
3. New Settings > Planets & Moons > Download Orbit Data button let you download new asteroid, comet, and satellite orbit data over WiFi networks.
4. Greater precision - SkyVoyager now reproduces the Astronomical Almanac's planetary positions to better than 1 arcsecond!
5. New Settings > Precession view gives you precise control over calculation options.
6. Scope now stays locked at chart center when Lock button is selected while scope is moving.
7. Duplicate location groups removed (from Settings > Location > Choose Location from List view).
8. Asteroid, Comet, Satellite orbital inclinations are now displayed correctly.
9. Orbit data is now displayed for both components of binary star systems.
10. Atmospheric refraction now taken into account when computing object altitudes and rise/set times.
11. Object right ascensions and declinations are now displayed for the selected precession epoch, not J2000.
12. The Date/Time picker in the Settings > Date & Time view now returns the correct time when switching from standard to daylight savings time and vice-versa (no longer off by an hour).