App Review– Star Chart Infinite

 ***The premium version of the best selling Astronomy and Star Gazing App. Includes all the upgrades from Star Chart!You can now have a virtual planetarium in your pocket! Look through the eyes of your Android device to see a virtual window into the whole visible universe.All you have to do is point your Android device* at the sky and Star Chart Infinite will tell you exactly what you are looking at.Using state of the art GPS technology, an accurate 3D universe, and all of the latest high tech functionality, Star Chart Infinite calculates – in real time – the current location of every star and planet visible from Earth and shows you precisely where they are; even in broad daylight!Want to know what that bright star is called? Point your device at it – you might just find out it’s a planet!Want to know what the night sky looks like to people on the other side of the earth? Well just point your device down!Want to know where your star sign is in the sky? Star Chart Infinite will tell you all this and more.Star Chart Infinite includes:
– Just point and view. No need to scroll around the screen to find out what you are looking at. *
– Displays all the planets of the solar system, plus the sun and the moon.
– All 88 constellations, with constellation imagery based on the beautiful artwork by 17th century astronomer Johannes Hevelius.
– Accurately depicts all the visible stars of the northern and southern hemispheres – a total of over 125,000 stars!
– Includes Charles Messier’s entire catalogue of 110 exotic deep sky objects.
– Includes the time and location of all the major meteor showers
– Includes the position of all the major satellites of Earth including Hubble & the ISS
– Includes a set of extended solar system objects made up of moons, dwarf planets and large asteroids.
– Tap on anything in the sky and get the facts on what you are looking at, including distance and brightness.
– Very powerful zoom function, lets you view the sky in extra detail, using intuitive finger gestures.
– Fully configurable. Star Chart Infinite displays only the sky objects that you are interested in.
– Manually set your location to find out what the sky looks like from anywhere in the world.So point your Android device at the sky and see what’s out there!
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Escapist Games will update Star Chart Infinite regularly, so please send us your feedback and features requests – thanks!*Augmented Reality mode only available if your device supports it, as this feature requires a built-in compass and accelerometer. Manual scrolling is supported on all other devices.Star Chart Infinite does not require internet access for normal usage. Internet access is only required initially to verify the license and subsequently when accessing the support page and external links.

 

Now in reading that, I was kind of hesitant as to the $7.99 price tag(was when I bought it), but I can assure you, it was worth it. What this app does is give you an INFINITE amount of entertainment as to the wonderment that is our universe. You don’t have to be outside on a clear night with perfect conditions to enjoy this app.

Let me explain:

At first, I thought this app needed to work off your camera, meaning you point to the sky and it would tell you what you’re aiming at. Instead, it runs off of the GPS and cellular connection to pin-point its location, (you can also force the app to find you and have it acquire GPS coordinates as well). In doing this, it can/will tell you everything within view. Constellations, planets, comets, satellites, messier objects( galaxies and nebulae), and meteor showers. You can choose what to have shown on your screen, be it just planets, or everything as I have done.  You can pinch and zoom in and out for greater detail, but in this doing this, the screen can and will shake alot as it picks up very slight motion from your hands.

The modes:

Different modes this app supports are, AR mode (augmented reality)- can have it as a static view and be still on screen or you can turn to auto/on where it will display on screen, whatever you’re pointing the phone at.

Night mode- switches the font color from white to red, helps to keep your night vision when viewing outside at night.

3d explorer mode- this acts alot like Google Earth and you can explore the Earth as seen from space, you can’t zoom in to the extent Google Earth can as this app is mainly for space exploration.

Tours- app will take you on tour of itself and the region around you.

Hubble Photo Viewer- photo gallery of Hubble images

There is so much to this app that I could keep writing for a long time. The long and short of it, this app is phenomenal. You don’t have to be outdoors to use it, functions just as well from indoors. This app kept my daughter(2) captivated for an hour. Just looking around the room with phone held in hands, she was able to explore the wonder and astonishing views of the worlds around her.

I for one, find this app better than Google sky maps because this app, Star Chart Infinite, is much more in depth, more accurate, and has much better graphics to it; especially the 3D views of the planets.

Title image courtesy of  light-years.net