SkyGazer

Release 1.3 - Now With Time Flow!

For the iPhone and iPod Touch

SkyGazer is an easy-to-use iPhone and iPod Touch planetarium program designed for beginners in astronomy. It's the intro version of SkyVoyager, our advanced iPhone astronomy software.

SkyGazer shows you every star the eye can see, and the 220 best-known star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies in the sky. It displays all the major planets and moons of the Solar System using NASA spacecraft imagery, and includes a database of several dozen asteroids, comets, and artificial satellites.

SkyGazer can accurately show you the sky from any location on Earth, at any time up to 100 years in the past or future. SkyGazer also includes informative descriptions of the constellations, stars, and planets. It contains hundreds of images from NASA space missions, the Hubble Space Telescope, and from the world's foremost astro-photographers.

If you have an iPhone 3G S with a compass, SkyGazer 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 SkyGazer points in its direction. SkyGazer 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.

SkyGazer's simple user interface makes it an invaluable tool for exploring the night sky.

SkyVoyager - The Pro Version

For advanced users, Carina Software also offers SkyVoyager. SkyVoyager contains a much larger database of 312,000 stars and 14,500 deep sky objects. If you have a computer-controlled GoTo telescope, SkyVoyager can use your iPhone or iPod's built-in WiFi to point your telescope in the sky.

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Overview

SkyGazer 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 $2.99 (USD), and the download size is 21 MB. Here's what SkyGazer includes:

• 1 Sun
• 9 Planets (counting Pluto!)
• 22 Moons
• 88 Constellations
• 20 Comets
• 20 Asteroids
• 220 Star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies
• 1,418 City locations
• 9,550 Stars

Educational Content

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

• 37 Planet and Moon Descriptions
• 51 Constellation Prints
• 65 Reference Diagrams
• 88 Constellation Guides
• 176 Deep Sky Object Images
• 131 Solar System Images
• 224 Deep Sky Object Descriptions
• 205 Star Descriptions

The app includes extensive on-line help, and an introduction to the basic concepts of amateur astronomy. SkyGazer is perfect for camping trips or other occasions where you want to learn about the night sky - but didn't bring the laptop (or the internet!) along.

What's New in Release 1.3

The latest release of SkyGazer 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. A crash when computing moonrise/moonset times on days when moonrise/set does not actually occur has now been fixed.
7. The compass/altimeter are now temporarily disabled when you touch the screen, to allow swiping and zooming. They are re-enabled afterwards.
8. Corrected refraction formulae now provide accurate altitudes for objects near the horizon.
9. Updated descriptions for the Moon and a few bright stars.
10. 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

SkyGazer 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. More than 109 new and updated deep sky object descriptions, and 50 new deep sky object images. Every Caldwell object now has a description. Numerous spelling/grammar errors corrected in all descriptions.
5. Fixed accuracy problems with earth-orbiting satellites. Fixed problem with local horizon coordinates not including the effects of precession.