Wanted - but not sure it exists!

[apple]

Hi

i have an electronic star chart on my iphone which you can point at anywhere and it will tell you what stars/planets etc you are looking at.

My mum is a bit of an amateur astromony addict (which i've picked up hence the app!) and loves it!

She doesn't have an ipod or iphone (and no intention to buy one)

I was wondering is there a stand alone electronic version? Something that can be pointed at location and give a map of the area - it doesn't have to be a super detailed map!

i've had a look on google and all i can find is skyscout but thought you guys might know a bit more than my searching for something i'm not sure exists can pull up

would love to buy her something like that for christmas - if only so i can get my phone back off her!

thanks

[Trevor-Austin]

Yep, Meade skyscout (I think)

[apple]

thanks!

is that the only one about, it's a little bit out of my budget to be honest!

also if there's any software for tomtoms or something avaible that might work too

[Psychobilly]

How about PAYG Orange San Fransisco and Google Sky?

[apple]

that's probably a good avenue to look down, thanks for the help

[AdamSegarty]

I use Star Walk for the iPhone, it costs a few £ but is WELL worth it. You just point you phone up and it shows what you're looking at Also you can configure your location by aiming it at the bright moon, how clever is that?!?

[WayBig]

celestron do one that's similar to the meade - I think it's called the "sky scout", the meade one is called "my sky", I think

[E621Keith]

I have seen similar app on Android. Can't remember the name though.

[ollypenrice]

A smple planisphere and a red light? Do we have to be dependent on gadgets?

Olly

[Psychobilly]

Hang on I'll fetch my hammer and smash those blasted new fangled machines...

[ollypenrice]

Awe, I'm no Luddite but I think that a planisphere is such a nice simple way to see what lies where, and since you interact with it you will remember more of what it tells you. Passive devices don't have this quality, I don't thnk.

Olly

[PeterM]

I have seen, although I can't remember exactly where right this second (although it'll come to me) a little gadget that you can plug in to a laptop or notepad that lets you do more or less the same thing as the various sky apps for smartphones. Not that helpful as I can't remember where I saw it but I'll post back when I remember.

[Psychobilly]

It's amazing what the new and relatively cheap smart phones are capable of - for £99 + £20 for a 16GB memory card I now have a phone, GPS, portable games console (angry birds rocks and is free on Android) with Google sky maps (Free) , and a street level map of the whole world thanks to mapdroyd and its free maps (about 4.5 GB of datas for the whole world). I also have all the music i like to listen too on there as well and still have 8GB free to play with...

It also has all those other essential apps (flashlight, level, compass etc...)

I was one of the mugs who bought the original Meade Mysky... which was plagued with GPS problems and crashes... so Meades Solution was to disable the GPS in later firmware... at the time it seemed like an option to "push to" the 100x25's on their parallelogram mount...

Billy...

[simon84]

I see on Morgans that they are doing a 7" touchpad for £89.99 that runs on Google Android. There is one winging its way over to me as we speak.......

Was just about to send the order over and have popped the breaks on, its running Android version 2.0.1 and dosnt look like its upgradable. The 10" tablet they have is running 2.1. Need to do a bit more reading into these because if most apps are running a newer version and these cannot be upgraded then that would not be fun.

[WayBig]

I've posted this link on the site before, it's the work of genius and will solve all your problems. It should satisfy luddites and technophiles alike

[simon84]

I've not seen that before, thanks for the link......who needs shiney screens with pretty graphics.....and if you wanted to you could pop a small red light torch in front of the planisphere to illuminate it.......genius

[E621Keith]

If I am doing observation seriously, a planisphere and a red torch is the way to go. Even on low setting, my phone's LCD screen is far too bright, and more than enough to ruin any dark adaptation.

[ollypenrice]

If I am doing observation seriously, a planisphere and a red torch is the way to go. Even on low setting, my phone's LCD screen is far too bright, and more than enough to ruin any dark adaptation.

I agree. Dark adaptation is everything and acetate sheets over PCs are not the way forward for me. Well, imaging, yes, but not for visual.

Olly