Have you ever looked up at the night sky, seen a brighter-than-normal object and wondered, “hmm… is that a planet? Which one?” Given the curiosity of my kids and wife, it’s great to have a personal planetarium that can answer that, and much, much more. Vito Technology’s Star Walk takes a “stellar” approach by making use of the iPhone 3Gs’s digital compass to create not only an elegant interface that “universally” amazes every person I’ve shown, but also a useful real-time tool that takes augmented reality to remarkable heights!
After the artful splash screen has cleared, you are met with an overlay screen with information about the most questioned celestial objects you’ll see each day: moon (phases), and the rise, set, and angle of inclination of Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and sun (including length of day). The arrows at the bottom corners of this overlay advance or rewind the data by one day.
After clearing that overlay, the magic of this pocket augmented reality planetarium truly comes to life.
By aiming your iPhone as if you were taking a picture of the sky, the stars, constellations, ecliptic (path the sun appears to follow from our perspective on Earth), cardinal directions, and galaxies appear as labeled objects in the artistic beauty that reminds me of a version of the aurora borealis. Pan left, right, up, and down to see the real-time location of other celestial objects. A tap on the screen activates a label and information circle where you can get additional data (such as declination, magnitude), and the familiar double-click or pinch zoom (in or out) allow for easy navigation. You can also look for stars, constellations, solar system objects, Messiers (deep sky objects) through the search menu which also activates the same menu.
Besides the Star Spotter augmented reality mentioned above, Star Walk’s additional features include:
- a Time Machine which shows the movement of the night’s sky as you slide to advance the element of time you wish (year, month, day, hour, minute);
- a Location selection to show the objects in the sky at a different location than where you are;
- Astronomy Picture of the Day
- the ability to Bookmark your favorite image and reality.
My oldest son (seven) has set in the back seat of the car, looking up through the moon roof with my iPhone in hand aimed upward and identifying celestial objects in the style of a Hallmark commercial – or better yet, a car commercial for my soon defunct Saturn (this is true, it ‘s an Outlook “ or maybe now it should be called a LookOut).
All in all, Star Walk is a stunning planetarium app that has never failed to impress; and with such a low price for such a refined application, the bargain is beyond compare.
Star Walk is available for $2.99 at the App Store.
Star Walk was purchased by the author and reviewed on Just Another iPhone Blog. For further information regarding our site ‘s review policies, please see the ‘About ‘ page
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