On 18 Aug 2013, at 14:13, jcarman6@q.com wrote:
I am now the proud owner of a smart phone (the last cell phone was a flip phone - much like Star Trek's communicators). The members of this board have discussed astronomy apps for cell phones previously, but I am requesting a few, at least to start, "free" apps for astronomy. Any suggestions?
Hi Joan, Sorry for the late reply but I'm just getting home. You didn't say what kind of phone but if it's an iPhone I've got several suggestions. Most are free, some are a few bucks. Basically when I first got the phone (and later iPad) I went a bit crazy in the iTunes Store and downloaded most every free astronomy app available. It quickly became apparent that several really were not worth the price (even if they were free) but with iTunes removing an unwanted app is just a matter of clicking on it and hitting refresh and it's gone. At any rate, here are the ones I use on the phone: Planetarium apps: Sky Safari Lite Distant Suns Pocket Universe Star Walk Moon apps: Phases Moon HD Moon Maps Moon Mars apps: Mars Globe Mars Atlas And the one I use more than any other at star parties is Gas Giants. Excellent on the iPad but still ok on the phone for showing the positions of various Jupiter and Saturn satellites and how they move. Also shows the position of the Red Spot and the orientation of Saturn's rings for the current time or the time you specify. A few other miscellaneous include: 3D Sun Aurora Forecast NASA SWx (space weather) Exoplanet Sunrise Clock Sun n Moon AstroClock Sidereal Time (handy for setting old fashioned setting circles). As you might expect the larger display of the iPad is a very big plus, though in many cases the apps do pretty well on the phone. BTW, early generation iPads are available cheap (under $200) and you don't need any sort of cellular data plan to make any of the apps I've shown above work. patrick