Best Planet/Star finder app?

[Shore Diver]

Hello all! First post!

I just ordered a Dobsonian telescope. No computer. I see a lot of apps on my iPhone store to find planets. I tried a few free ones and they were not terribly accurate. Can anyone recommend some good ones???

[Dark Vader]

Hello and welcome to SGL

I use Sky Safari 6 plus on my phone (costs a few quid but well worth it) and Stellarium on my laptop (Everyone's favourite price - free!)

A good one I find for the moon is Lunar map HD.

There are loads of very helpful, knowledgeable people on here.

Enjoy the new scope

Andy

 

 

[Sunshine]

Sky Safari 6 plus is my goto since other SGL members pointed it out to me, love it, has everything one would want.

[Ricochet]

I also use Sky Safari 6, but with any app I wouldn't try to use the compass mode where you can hold the phone up to the sky to identify things. The compasses in phones are not accurate enough and easily confused if they're near something metallic, like a telescope. Instead it is better to learn to identify the major constellations and then use the app as a map to get from something you can easily identify to wherever you need to get. 

[Shore Diver]

I ended up buying the $3 version of sky safari to see how it is. So far, so good! I’ll probably upgrade it. It’s on my iPhone 6, so I’ll have to see which version is compatible with it, and which one will be better for me. Thanks for the info!

[Pixies]

The 'plus' version is great. The observation features are really useful, esp the public observation lists.

I also really like the way you can superimpose the FOV of your telescope/EP combinations as well as Telrad circles. The latter especially assists with star-hopping.

[RobertI]

I love Sky Safari and eventually upgraded to the 'Pro' version. Why? Because it's just so feature rich, tactile and fun to use - I sometimes just browse the sky in SS on a cloudy day and explore what the app can do. I'm still discovering features years later.

[Pixies]

6 minutes ago, RobertI said:

I love Sky Safari and eventually upgraded to the 'Pro' version. Why? Because it's just so feature rich, tactile and fun to use - I sometimes just browse the sky in SS on a cloudy day and explore what the app can do. I'm still discovering features years later.

Are there any features that the 'pro' version has over the 'plus'? I thought the difference was with the various databases available?