Star Walk - 5 stars astronomy guide
By Vito Technology Inc.
View More By This DeveloperOpen iTunes to buy and download apps.
Description
***Featured by Apple - Best Apps of 2009!***
For your kids who are eager to learn, indispensable for both amateurs and professionals, Star Walk will guide you through the night sky in style.
Star Walk is your personal planetarium that can answer all your curiosities about the sky! For anyone who is interested in stargazing, amateurs or more professional Star Walk makes discovering more than 9,000 stars, planets, constellations, messiers as beautiful and easy as it has never been before!
Use the Star Spotter function to activate the DIGITAL COMPASS on 3GS only, find your orientation and you will see the sky in front of you in real-time. You can pan the iPhone’s display and watch the stars scroll around.
ATTENTION:
for iPod Touch users please use manual selection of locations if Wifi is not available.
If you have concerns or feedback about this or anything else please get in contact with us at support@vitotechnology.com, follow us on twitter.com/starwalk or our facebook group page.
Star Walk features and how to use them:
PICTURE of the DAY: a push notification will appear on the icon to tell you there is a new picture to watch. Go to the left hand corner click on it, select button with exclamation marks and a list of pictures will open in front of you. To know more about the pictures click on -i- on the top right hand corner.
HELP GUIDE: for any doubt on how to use the Digital Compass, the Time Machine, Location Selection and to get in contact with us for any suggestions or concerns click on -?- on the top right corner.
VIEW from the EARTH:
Automatic and manual selection of locations on a 3D globe.
DIGITAL COMPASS
If you have an iPhone 3GS tilt your phone and the ''Star Spotter'' function will be activated, a live representation of what you see in the sky will appear on your display and the sky will start following your movements right, left, up and down.
TIME MACHINE: click on the clock icon and date and time to watch the sky tonight or in a year time.
MOON PHASES: select the moon, click on -i - symbol to enlarge the image and start the clock to watch moon phases.
Wikipedia LINKS: select one celestial corpse and click on the - i - icon to activate the magnifier and read main information about it. To know more click on the -w - icon at the bottom of the table ad the wikipedia page will open up
SETTINGS: with the bottom right icon you are given different options. You can change the screen with night mode, select brightness, put sounds on or off, find and select location and start you list of favorites. Here the -!- will indicate presence of new pictures.
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Star Walk reviewed:
''This is the best stargazing iPhone application I have come across.'' Matt Sawyers, The iPhone Blog - 2009
''Star Walk is probably the prettiest of the astronomy guides available for the iPhone and iPod touch.'' TUAW -2009
"I’ve been playing with Star Walk for a couple weeks now and it’s definitely become a favorite app to use for stargazing as well as to show off some of my iPhone’s capabilities to friends and curious strangers." cultofmac favorites - 2009
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What's New in Version 3.6.1
Minor bugs fixed
Customer Reviews
An educational app disguised as a game
There are now seven serious star-charting apps in the iTunes Store (as of 30 January 2009). Each is good in its own ways, and each has its weaknesses.
Star Walk is the most game-like of the seven apps, with spectacular graphics, animation, and even sound effects. It can also teach you quite a bit about celestial objects, though it won't always show you how they appear to the naked eye.
The photographic images of the Milky Way, nebulae, galaxies, and planets are stunning. The user interface is fun and intuitive. And this app isn't merely a toy: it will give you quite a bit of information about the planets, 110 deep-sky objects, and about 8000 stars.
The main limitation is that you can't turn anything off. You can't simulate a moonlit or light-polluted sky where only the bright stars are visible. You can't get rid of the constellation lines or artwork or text labels, though these things disappear and reappear as you zoom in or out. All the other apps give you more control over what is and isn't drawn.
Other limitations: The databases of stars and deep-sky objects are still a little buggy (as of this writing). There are no identified deep-sky objects in the southernmost part of the sky. The planets are drawn at absurdly large sizes. There are pictures for only 18 of the 88 constellations. And the zoom range is rather limited, from a 90 degree field down to about 7 degrees.
Definitely check out the other astronomy apps, and buy more than one if you can afford to. Consider iStellar if you want a simple and attractive app that gives more control over what's shown. Consider iAstronomica or GoSkyWatch if you want to see the whole sky at once. And consider Distant Suns or Starmap or Uranus if you want a more serious and informative app to use while observing the sky. But unless you don't like being entertained, consider Star Walk as well.
(This review is of version 1.2 of Star Walk.)
Unique and fun U.I. - Buy it.
This app is worth the price. I've used many planetarium programs, but this UI is unlike anything else. Don't compare this to a full planetarium program. It's really just eye candy: rather than plotting the stars dynamically, the stars are part of one large image that acts as a movable backdrop; the search function omits comets, galaxies, deep sky objects, etc. However, the planets are mapped nicely, as are the constellation figures. Time-elapse is automated beautifully with a clever scroll bar: nudge it to advance in years, months, days or hours. Overall, a fabulous user experience and worth the price.
Wow
One word, wow. Amazing to see what is up there, and know what you are looking at. I especially enjoy using in conjunction with "Darkness". As the sun sets, search for the moon and tweak the time machine to see how your evening sky will unfold. And you can see the Southern Cross for the first time without actually going that way. Night mode in red might be nice.
- $2.99
- Category: Education
- Updated: Feb 17, 2010
- Current Version: 3.6.1
- 29.1 MB
- Languages: English, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish
- Seller: Vito Technology Inc.
- © 2008 Vito Technology Inc.
Requirements: Compatible with iPhone and iPod touch. Requires iPhone OS 3.0 or later.
