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StarmapPro for the iPhone / Ipod Touch

Neil M

By Neil M
in Member Equipment Reviews

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Neil M

Neil M

Posted
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I've just installed the StarmapPro application and would highly recommend this to all beginners trying to find what they're looking for! What's really usefull for me is the eyepiece mode which gives you an actual representation of what you'll see through the ep (after you've input your telescope's apperture, focal length, and all eps you use). You are able to 'zoom' in and out by virtually swapping eyepieces and barlows.

What really makes it useful is that you can flip the eyepiece view to suit your finder scope or eyepiece orientation. As a newbie I find this an exellent feature so I don't have to keep mentally reversing the star map. The application also has the biggest set of options I've seen for an iPod app, even puts Stellarium to shame! Mind you, it's not cheap (for an app that is) but definately worth it IMHO.

http://www.star-map.fr/manualPro.pdf

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petemcr

petemcr

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Hi

Do you know which version it is you're using, I’ve not seen some of the options you've mentioned but I think I may have a more dated version. With that in mind though it is an amazing application, I personally like the night vision setting on it, very easy on the eyes lol :)

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Neil M

Neil M

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Hi - I've got version 1.2. Used it to find M81 and M82 last night which are very faint for me, now I don't need to keep popping inside to consult Stellarium and ruining my night vision!

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Neil27

Neil27

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I agree its a great app.

I downloaded the previous version of Starmap and found it to be very good for casual use.

This version though makes any paper star maps almost redundant to be honest. Love the telescope/eyepiece view as well, great for working out what you can see with what scope.

I've also read somewhere it may be able to control telescopes/mounts although I've no firm info on this.

All in all a great application if you have an i-phone.

Regards, Neil.

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Neil27

Neil27

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Nice to see some iPhone users on here (kudos on the me.com webpage as well Neil) and yes starmap is ace i've been using since day one (well nearly) and the Pro version is even better.

Thanks for the comments Matt.

I just need more time to get the most out of the equipment I have, unfortunately the weather isn't really helping at the moment...:)

Definitely one of the best apps for the i-phone, apart from the ECB up to the minute ashes cricket scores....:)

Regards, Neil.

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mattlane

mattlane

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Neil, are you using your mac to capture/process? or like me are you having to use winders (although wxAstroCapture is ace) i wasn't too impressed with the stacking apps on the Mac though seem to be a lot more complicated than they need to be, and registax is pretty easy to use.

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Neil27

Neil27

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Neil, are you using your mac to capture/process? or like me are you having to use winders (although wxAstroCapture is ace) i wasn't too impressed with the stacking apps on the Mac though seem to be a lot more complicated than they need to be, and registax is pretty easy to use.

Hi Matt.

No I'm using several computers to do different jobs.

Currently right now I am using my i-mac for general surfing and music/picture/movie/making software. My day to day computer.

In my observatory I have had to use a windoze computer, which I use to control my mount through sky6, and use the canon eos software to capture.

I then save my images to USB stick and bring them back to my i-mac which is then turned into a windoze computer using boot camp where I stack in DSS and then process in PS3.

Kinda complicated but it works for me.

I've never used my macs for processing or stacking, didn't realise there was software available for macs...:)

Be good if there were, as I am a converted mac user, been like this for 4 to 5 years now. Basically IMO MS sucks big time, vista is near criminal what it makes a poor computer have to do, definately a step backwards.

Right, apologies for hijacking the thread and having a rant.

Regards, Neil.

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mattlane

mattlane

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Neil,

to do stacking i found Keiths Image Stacker, and Lynkeos.

And also a good page online here:

Webcam Astrophotography on the Mac - Review

I'll second your comments on MS, in particular their god awful web browser Internet Explorer 8, i recently completed a website for a client and the day following launch i had complaints saying that it was running really really slowly (please note some of the pages load in around 90 images) i tested it on all my browsers here and the site loaded in seconds (a max of around 6-8 at my end) it turned out that our friends at MS have upgraded the browser and decided instead of tuning its performance, they decided to spend their time making the interface nice, which in my opinion they failed at miserably, now the internet is full of complaints about this poor performance, and a number of ways to alleviate this, but i could hardly contact all 20k of their clients to help them tune their computer to make it work better.

In the end it all blew over and the client (after much demonstrating) believed it was a problem with internet explorer - although that doesn't get me back the 10 hours i spent trying to find an alternate solution. Even to the extent where i had my code checked by other developers to see if we could optimise it down - nicely enough they said there was nothing i could have done as my code was optimised enough already.

If i had a quid for every time i got scuppered by IE i would be rich beyond my wildest dreams...

There's my rant over.

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milan

milan

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hubby and i purchased starmap pro last night and went outside to sit on the sun loungers (!), what a great piece of software, did everything we could have wanted it to do. one thing to watch though is the brightness of the phone, even though we put it to night vision the screen was still really bright, and also if the app goes to sleep you have to wake the phone up and that certainly doesnt glow red! LOL

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calibos

calibos

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so does it actually control a mount by bluetooth etc????

steve

No. At the moment the author in conjunction with the Macs Equinox planetarium software have implemented something of fudge. Starmap Pro sends commands via wifi to a macbook running Equinox which then sends the commands on to the motor handset via conventional serial cable or bluetooth/serial aircable thingamajig.

However, he mentions that he is working on bluetooth direct connection with the I-Phone which does have bluetooth. This could take a while as it involve ascom drivers or somesuch to be wriiten to enable Starmap on the I-phone to communicate with the motot handset directly. But its only a matter of time.

How cool will it be to have nearly full planterium functionality in conjunction with telescope control for full remote control Goto's/slews in such a cool small form factor.

BTW. Has anyone used the 3GPS versions. ie the version with GPS, Compass and tilt sensor with Starmap Pro. I read that there is this cool functionality where you hold the I-phone out in front of you up to the sky, and it displays a perfectly scaled view of what yyou are seeing naked eye. ie you could move the i-phone across the plough and the view pans on the screen and the stars obstructed by the i-phone are drawn onscreen. Kinda like a heads up display of the real thing with star info beside the stars. Hard to explain. Theres a pic on the front page of the starmap website. I wonder how well it works in practice though.

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calibos

calibos

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Just an update on Scope Control from an I-Phone/I-Touch.

Carina Software, the makers of Voyager PLanetarium software for PC and Mac now have an I-phone version called Sky Voyager. While it is behind SkyMap Pro in some areas, it is only at version 1.0 and I am sure it will catch up soon. From the getgo it seems to have a 30,000 catalogue of DSO's but only 300,000 named stars instead of Starmaps 1 million :D It has more detailed descriptions of Objects, astroimages of selected objects and integrated images of the Milkyway and the best and brightest DSO's within the PLanetarium view.

The 3gs I-phone gives it the same hold up to the sky scaled view functionality.

Best of all, the company are releasing an I-phone sized battery powered convertor that converts Wifi straight to serial, eliminating the need for a laptop with Equinox running like with Starmap pro.

In other words, the Sky-Fi box as they call it connects to your mount and the I-Phone/Touch talks directly to the mount through it.

Bingo!! Small form factor, wireless touchscreen goto control of your mount from a full planetarium software suite and available right now!! Looks like I'll be getting an I-Phone a lot sooner than I thought. :D

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Helen

Helen

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This looks really interesting! I'm assuming that celestron scopes will be easily connected. Will need to check it out when I get home

Helen (from her iPhone!)

ps can anyone tell me how to get smilies on an iPhone??

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geoff_k

geoff_k

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Useful review as I bought it for my Itouch a while back and haven't used it that much, but when I have it has proved very helpful.

What I find it really good for is alignment. The three-star routine can throw up some unusual stars as possible choices. Even though I have a reasonably good knowledge of the night sky they can be head-scratchers sometimes.

I had IStellar as well which was cheaper (I agree about the price) but didn't have things like NGC objects although I did use it to locate Comet Lulin.

All in all they are a real boon for observing and a lot easier than trying to read a map in low light or drag out the laptop.

Telescope control sounds interesting for the future.

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