SkyVoyager

Release 1.6.2 - now with iPad support!

For the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch

SkyVoyager is a powerful planetarium program for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. It's 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.

Watch our MacWorld 2010 "Best of Show" demo to see a video of SkyVoyager and SkyFi in action!

• Expansion Pack - You can purchase the optional SkyVoyager Expansion Pack, which adds 2.5 million stars, to 12th magnitude, from the Tycho-2 catalog. The Expansion Pack also includes more than 300 color images of the best known nebulae and galaxies from the Digitized Sky Survey. With the Expansion Pack, your sky charts will become dramatically more realistic and useful.

• Compass & Accelerometer - 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. Shake the phone to activate its compass and accelerometer - now you can identify stars and planets by holding your phone next to them! You can find any object in the sky by following an arrow that SkyVoyager points in its direction. If you have an older iPhone or iPod Touch, SkyVoyager supports the accelerometer built into your device as well. Tilting the phone now shows you the sky at the same angle that you're holding your phone.

• Night Vision Theme - SkyVoyager contains new interface themes that let you change the look-and-feel of the app. In addition to the "Classic" look, there's now a cool black "Onyx" theme, and a much-improved "Night Vision" theme that preserves your dark adaption as you're exploring the night sky.

• Time Flow Animation - The 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.

• Descriptions and Images - SkyVoyager includes more than 1000 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. Unlike other astronomy apps, which just give you Wikipedia links, our object descriptions are carefully researched and fact-checked - and you can use them anywhere, without needing internet access.

• Telescope Control - 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, such as our patentented SkyFi accessory, or our Voyager software running on a Mac or PC. 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.

Carina Software has licensed SkyVoyager to Orion Telescopes and Binoculars for separate distribution on the app store under the name StarSeek. Support questions for StarSeek should be sent to Orion Telescopes. Carina Software will continue to support, maintain, and develop SkyVoyager in the future.

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• 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, iPad, and iPod Touch.

The download price is $14.99 (USD). The app weighs in at 157 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
• 31,791 Star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies
• 312,088 Stars (or 2,560,704 with optional Expansion Pack)

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
• 287 Deep Sky Object Images
• 508 Star Descriptions
• 558 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.

iPad Support

SkyVoyager is now a "universal" app that runs natively on the iPad, as well as the iPhone and iPod Touch. It works almost identically on both devices. In a few places, the user interface has been rearranged to fit the larger iPad screen, but the app's features and functionality remain unchanged.

Here are a few screen shots of SkyVoyager running on the iPad. You may need to make your browser window wider to see them completely:

What's New in Release 1.6.2

The latest update to SkyVoyager is 1.6.2, released 1 June 2010. Here are the new features and bug fixes included in this release:

1. Solar System settings are now saved properly.
2. Fixed problems connecting to Orion and SkyWatcher telescopes.
3. Updated Constellation and Messier object descriptions. A few corrections to stellar and deep sky object data.

What's New in Release 1.6.1

SkyVoyager 1.6.1 was released 14 May 2010. Here are the new features and bug fixes included in this release:

1. iPad support! SkyVoyager is now a "universal" app which runs natively on the iPhone, iPod Touch, and now the iPad! Settings appear in a "split view" on the iPad. The rest of the app works the same on the iPad as on the iPhone and iPod Touch, but uses the full resolution of the iPad screen.
2. New translucent telescope controls! These dramatically increase the screen area available for the sky chart while telescope controls are active.
3. For Celestron telescopes, the app no longer turns off sidereal (RA) tracking after the directional buttons have been pressed and released.
4. Compass readings on the iPhone 3GS are now averaged, for much smoother compass action. The compass "flip" problem that occurs when holding the phone in portrait orientation near 45 degrees over your head has been corrected.
5. We've made improvements to the Night Vision theme: a red "filter" is placed over the keyboard after it appears, and a white flash when first displaying Help screens has been corrected. A few other minor Night Vision display problems have been fixed.
6. A software rotation lock in the Appearance settings lets you prevent the app from switching to landscape mode, if you so desire. This is independent of the iPad's hardware rotation lock.
7. The "Time" icon in the main toolbar has a new look to avoid conflicting with Apple's standard "Recents" icon. .
8. A few minor corrections have been made to various object descriptions. On the iPad, images appear in-line with the object description text (except in night vision mode - but you can still click the image links to display the images full screen.)>

What's New in Release 1.5

SkyVoyager is 1.5 was released on 7 April 2010. Here are the new features and bug fixes included in this release:

1. In the main search view, for both object lists and search results, objects below the horizon are displayed in a darker color, so that you can quickly tell "what's up" versus what's below the horizon.
2. Asterisms (like the Big Dipper) and their names can now be displayed in gold, to distinguish them from constellation lines, which are shown in purple. galaxy ovals are now flipped correctly when the chart is displayed with the flip horizontal option turned on, in the Settings -> Coordinates view.
3. If you tap the "Purchase Expansion Pack" button, but have already purchased the expansion pack, you'll get a message saying so immediately, rather than at the end of another in-app purchase. Star data is now stored more efficiently, reducing the total app size by about 10%.
4. The most current asteroid orbits are now imported from the Minor Planet Center. Iridium, GPS, and geosynchronous satellites are also now imported from Celestrak.com. Asteroid, comet, and satellite updates are now done in a background thread, so the app doesn't appear to freeze up while data is being imported.
5. After centering an object, then turning on the compass/altimeter (either by shaking the iPhone/iPod Touch, or from Settings) the chart now follows the compass/altimeter, instead of remaining locked on the centered object.
6. In the Object Info view for the Moon, SkyVoyager now displays the date and time of the next moon phase event after the current date. in the Object Info view for stars, radial velocities are now displayed correctly - previously they were too small by factor of 3.26.
7. Connecting to a telescope now happens in a background thread, so the app doesn't appear to freeze while the connection attempt is in progress. When re-connecting to a telescope after waking up from sleep, the app attempts to reconnect for up to 15 seconds after it wakes up. Telescope position queries are now re-tried if they fail, for added reliability.
8. The problematic Keep Alive option in the Scope Communication Settings view has been removed, and is now permanently OFF. It has been replaced with an option to send the current time & location to the telescope when connecting; previously, this always happened by default.
9. A problem with setting the date and time on older Meade LX-200 telescopes, which prevented the app from connecting to them, has now been fixed. When connecting to Takahashi telescopes, the app now asks which side of the meridian the mount is on, if the scope has not yet been aligned.

What's New in Release 1.4

SkyVoyager is 1.4 was released on 22 February 2010. Here are the new features and bug fixes included in this release:

1. This is a really big update (173 MB) ! It contains the Expansion Pack, which adds 2.5 million stars and 300 color images to SkyVoyager's star charts. The Expansion Pack is an optional $5 in-app purchase, available in the Settings.
2. To activate the compass and/or accelerometer, shake your iPhone/iPod - one quick shake will do it! Touch the screen to deactivate them. This is much simpler than going to the Settings to activate/deactivate the compass/altimeter - although you can still do it that way if you prefer.
3. New interface themes let you change the look-and-feel of the app. In addition to the "Classic" look, there's now a sexy black "Onyx" theme, and a much-improved "Night Vision" theme.
4. The Sun is now drawn with a yellow glow around it. Dawn and Dusk times are now computed correctly, in the Time segment of the Date & Time Settings view.
5. This version adds new and/or improved descriptions for nearly 100 deep sky objects, and adds several dozen new deep sky images. There are now 558 deep sky object descriptions and 287 deep sky images included in the app.
6. Searching for objects by name or catalog number now finds them even if they haven't been drawn or loaded into memory yet. Searches should also be much faster. ADS, Hipparcos, and Tycho catalog numbers have been added for a large number of double stars which were missing them. A few hundred duplicate deep sky objects in the database have been cleaned up.
7. Fixed some telescope control issues, including communication with the original Celestron NexStar 5/8. Also added support for the Starmaster Sky Tracker.

What's New in Release 1.3

SkyVoyager is 1.3 was released on 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).