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Usefulness:
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This is a useful application for the amateur astronomer, as well as being useful for an educational tool for adults and children who are interested in learning more about astronomy. it provides a complete picture of the sky around the Earth with constellations, stars, planets, the horizon, and more. It also provides a search function for specific areas of interest, and a time machine feature that can display just about any sky from any time or date. There is also a beautiful Hubble image gallery in which you can view detailed images and search for the images in the sky.
It provides a "Night Toggle" mode to make the colors and brightness more suitable and non-intrusive for nighttime gazing. The biggest issue with this application is that no matter how much you change the settings or how still you try to hold your device, the map constantly shakes and moves on the screen when you are in automatic mode. For those who get nauseous or are prone to headaches, I would recommend running this application in manual mode. In manual mode you have to move the map manually by panning the image with your finger as opposed to it automatically moving as you move with automatic mode.
This app is quite fun to use, especially at night and when you are trying to find a specific star or constellation. With the search feature you can enter in the object, for example Venus, that you wish to find in the sky and then a small directional circle will appear to guide you to that object with an arrow until you find it. Another slight downside to this application is that in automatic mode you must hold your device to the sky to accurately reflect the sky map and that can become uncomfortable if you are constantly looking up or holding your tablet/phone in the air. Overall, this application is quite fun and useful in small doses and there are many learning opportunities. I imagine that it would be quite useful for more serious star gazers when searching for specifics as well.
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