New astro-weather app for iOS

[ecuador]

Ok, since the weather is critical in the UK for an observer and I try to combine as many sources as I can, I was dismayed I could not find a good app for my phone that uses the 7Timer! data. So I made one - called Xasteria (Greek for cloudless night). So, anybody with an iPhone/iPad wants to test it out and give some input before it is released? You can pm me with an email. Works on iPhone/iPod/iPad with iOS 6.0 or newer.

[ecuador]

And the first version is on the App store. I had no complaints from my testers, I hope some more people find it useful!

[Anthonyw85]

Any migration to Android?

[ecuador]

Any migration to Android?

Sorry, I've never worked on Android, so it would require more time than I have to spare. Plus, the main reason for doing it for iOS is that I could not find another app that was using the 7Timer! data, while on Android there is Astro Panel (which doesn't work that great on my phone, but anyway).

[souls33k3r]

Downloading it now mate and will get back to you with my findings on this as currently i use the web version of astro weather sites which are good but i really wanted something on the phone.

There's another app called "Scope Nights: Astronomy Weather" which obviously is a paid app but never used it before

Cheers for all the great work mate.

[davedownsouth]

Downloading it now mate and will get back to you with my findings on this as currently i use the web version of astro weather sites which are good but i really wanted something on the phone.

There's another app called "Scope Nights: Astronomy Weather" which obviously is a paid app but never used it before

Cheers for all the great work mate.

Scope nights is a very good app (most reliable one I have ever used), but to get all the features does cost ~£8 (I think).  Still think this is money well spent

[perfrej]

Very nice.

The only glitch I saw was that the "done" link in settings ends up too far down when a banner is displayed at the top (like internet sharing notice). Only half the link is visible under those conditions, and it is hard to tap. This is on an iPhone 6s.

All the best,

Per

[Mick J]

Don't have one of those iPhone thingys, but well done, any help with the weather is worth having, I check across a few and look out the window.

Astropanel on Android is made by Shibby (Lewis) an SGL member, works OK for me, the main problems seem to be 7Timer! being down for long periods occasionally.

FLO's own Clearoutside is on both platforms and web based.

[souls33k3r]

Any migration to Android?

Try "Astro Panel (Astronomy)" for Android. Gives you the same look mate

[souls33k3r]

Scope nights is a very good app (most reliable one I have ever used), but to get all the features does cost ~£8 (I think).  Still think this is money well spent

Agreed ... So that people don't freak out for the amount here's the breakdown of the app ... £0.99 for the app, the £1.99 for UK/US Astronomy Weather, £0.99 Astronomer's Weather Pack & £2.99 for Dark Sky Locations

[Mick J]

Don't want to drift away from ecuador's original post ( I need to spend a bit of time looking at your blog ecuador ).  I find I use raintoday a lot on the web, the android app is nice, but charges for removed adverts version are more than I want to pay.

[melsky]

Just downloaded it look very useful.

Many thanks

Mel

[ecuador]

Very nice.

The only glitch I saw was that the "done" link in settings ends up too far down when a banner is displayed at the top (like internet sharing notice). Only half the link is visible under those conditions, and it is hard to tap. This is on an iPhone 6s.

All the best,

Per

Thanks for the feedback, what kind of banner is that, it "pushes" the app down? Perhaps you can PM me a screenshot? Thanks!

[ecuador]

Don't want to drift away from ecuador's original post ( I need to spend a bit of time looking at your blog ecuador ).  I find I use raintoday a lot on the web, the android app is nice, but charges for removed adverts version are more than I want to pay.

Ah, that's a nice link, I hadn't seen it.

It's funny that zero rain and max rain in the key are both white. They have increasingly "alarming" colors for more rain, until they come to the deluge level and say screw it nobody will mind what color we use in THAT weather. Ok, "zero" is probably meant to be "transparent", but still...

[souls33k3r]

So far i'm loving the app to be quite honest. All buttons are visible and easily accessible (using on iPhone 6 Plus). 

The only constructive criticism what i would give has nothing to do with the app itself but the information related back.

For example, for me tomorrow morning at 3am, it shows there is "No cloud" cover (The whole circle being blue), the Astro Seeeing is showing up as the bigger circle (second last or last from the right) and the transparency is showing up as "3" bars.

How could the Astro Seeing be that bad when no cloud and transparency being better? Slightly confused.

[ecuador]

So far i'm loving the app to be quite honest. All buttons are visible and easily accessible (using on iPhone 6 Plus). 

The only constructive criticism what i would give has nothing to do with the app itself but the information related back.

For example, for me tomorrow morning at 3am, it shows there is "No cloud" cover (The whole circle being blue), the Astro Seeeing is showing up as the bigger circle (second last or last from the right) and the transparency is showing up as "3" bars.

How could the Astro Seeing be that bad when no cloud and transparency being better? Slightly confused.

There is a quick explanation in the info screen, and also on the webpage. Perhaps I should expand it?

In any case, the reason you get separate values for astro-seeing, transparency and clouds is that they are not really related and have a different effect. In fact, it is not seldom that you can get great seeing between the clouds. That's because bad seeing means the atmosphere has zones of varying temperature and turbulence that gives you a bit of a wobbly image in high magnification. In effect when you are looking at planets you'll want good "seeing" to see details. Transparency on the other hand has to do with water vapor and the effect is that you get less contrast. On a night with good transparency the low-contrast targets such as galaxies, nebulae etc will pop out more, regardless of "seeing". I was asked whether I could combine all stat into a single measure and from this it should be clear why it would be impossible - it depends on what you want to see, what telescope you have (e.g. size matters in seeing, type matters for dew etc) and personal preference.

[perfrej]

I cannot reproduce right now as I am in Provence and my remote observatory for a full week - no phone coverage. If you want to reproduce yourself, enable internet sharing and let another device connect. At that point there is an extra status line below the notmal top one (signal strength, battery and that stuff). When the extra line is displayed, the app screen area is pushed down, which in turn makes the bottom buttons in the settings pane of Xasteria end up half out of the screen.

I'll reproduce when I get home and have data turned on again.

All the best,

Per

[ecuador]

I cannot reproduce right now as I am in Provence and my remote observatory for a full week - no phone coverage. If you want to reproduce yourself, enable internet sharing and let another device connect. At that point there is an extra status line below the notmal top one (signal strength, battery and that stuff). When the extra line is displayed, the app screen area is pushed down, which in turn makes the bottom buttons in the settings pane of Xasteria end up half out of the screen.

I'll reproduce when I get home and have data turned on again.

All the best,

Per

I can reproduce it, don't worry. It had never occurred to me this can happen (don't use the hotspot I guess) and I see many other apps have the same problem, including some Apple ones!

[ecuador]

I cannot reproduce right now as I am in Provence and my remote observatory for a full week - no phone coverage. If you want to reproduce yourself, enable internet sharing and let another device connect. At that point there is an extra status line below the notmal top one (signal strength, battery and that stuff). When the extra line is displayed, the app screen area is pushed down, which in turn makes the bottom buttons in the settings pane of Xasteria end up half out of the screen.

Fixed in v1.2 which is out now!

[chrisvdberge]

Very nice! Will give it a try. 

[Grotemobile]

Don't want to drift away from ecuador's original post ( I need to spend a bit of time looking at your blog ecuador ).  I find I use raintoday a lot on the web, the android app is nice, but charges for removed adverts version are more than I want to pay.

Thanks for that.

Steve.

[ecuador]

An update was released yesterday for Xasteria which added the list of recent locations (it was previously only available in the Xasteria function of Polar Scope Align).