When it came to checking out Astronomy Apps, I was in for a BIG surprise, for a number of reasons…first, there are way more apps available than I would ever imagine for this topic secondly, these apps are not used by many people and it was hard to find many that had been downloaded by lots of users, other than the Google Sky Map and lastly, the really good ones cost money, and a couple of them cost a lot of money, however, as vast as the universe is, these developers would have to load a massive amount of data for the heavens! All of these apps are good, however the top couple are outstanding, if not expensive, but I included them any way, because if you are serious about astronomy, then you want an app that is accurate, complete, and will do it all for you.
This app calls itself Night Sky “Tools,” and that is exactly what it is astronomical tools and charts for those interested in astronomy. The app does not require an internet connection for most of the information, since much stargazing can be in out of way places where a connection may not be possible. It has a night mode that turns the screen display to red, for easier night observations.
This app gives you information about the main celestial objects, such as, the Sun, Moon, the eight planets, and constellations based on the position of the observer, date, time, and time zone. The app is designed with a beautiful user interface and screens.
One of the most complete planetariums on the Play Store allows you to gaze at the sky from in the comfort of your living room. If you device has a rear facing camera, experience true augmented reality with their sky map overlaid onto the real world a unique experience not available on any other Android planetarium.
You get the latest pictures from NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) and each image can be automatically downloaded and used as your wallpaper automatically get a new wallpaper displayed every day. You are also able to read interesting facts about the pictures of the universe expand your horizons. You also have access to previous images from (APOD), can read their descriptions, and use them as wallpapers as well.
This is also a full-featured planetarium for your phone that you carry around, to use whenever you need to gaze at the stars. The sensor control will enable you to identify what you see in the sky in just a few seconds by pointing your phone at the object. There are over 600,000 stars displayed in a real-time zoom-able sky map and there are 3D renderings of the major solar system planets and their satellites.
This app is listed as a top “Educational & Augmented Reality star-gazing app that is used by more than 10 million people. Star Chart puts a virtual planetarium right in your pocket. It uses state of the art GPS technology, a 3D universe, that calculates in real-time and the current location of every star and planet visible from earth. If you want to know the name of that bright spot in the sky just point your device at it and you may find out that it’s a planet.
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