Pocket Stars
Published on Oct 7, 2007 at 12:46 pm.
3 Comments.
Filed under amateur astronomy.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the freeware program Stellarium for computers. It comes in multiple forms available to multiple platforms. You can load the program onto a notebook computer and take it with you into the field. But, sometimes, a notebook computer is a bit much to carry. It might be a bit heavy and bulky, and besides many are rather expensive to be carrying around in the damp conditions that you often find outdoors. But, PDAs are miniature computers, themselves. In fact, a modern PDA has more computing power than the computers that flew the Apollo capsules to the Moon. Over a year ago, I wrote about 2Sky, my favorite PDA program for PDAs with the Palm operating system. But, 2Sky is no longer supported, and that is really disappointing. Also, not all PDAs operated with the Palm operating system.
Last night, as I was finishing up a public star party, I got a call from my girlfriend. She needed to go to the hospital. Needless to say, the rest of the night, nearly until dawn, was spent in the ER. While there, I was talking with one of the doctors who, it turns out, is a bit of an amateur astronomer. His PDA runs Windows Mobile, so 2Sky wouldn’t work, but he had another program on there called Pocket Stars. My PDA runs Palm, but I’ve heard of Pocket Stars. It is a good program. In fact, in most ways, it does more than 2Sky (though there are a few things that 2Sky does better). In fact, I think that I rather like Pocket Stars. There are some options on it that are not normally found on planetarium programs that run on such small devices. If I were to get a new PDA or cell phone that had Windows Mobile, then I think that I’ll for sure get Pocket Stars.
It not only has star charts, but it also gives some information about the stars and celestial objects plotted. It gives rise and set times for planets. It has a Moon phase calendar, and it plots an Orrery of the Solar System. Pocket Stars has a red night vision mode for field work. It also has a Geochron display and celestial navigation aides.
So, if you’ve got a Windows Mobile device, then give it a try.
-Astroprof
Astrolink [International Edition] » Blog Archive » Astrosphere for October 7, 2007 on October 7, 2007 at 9:43 pm: 1
[…] Astroprof reviews a handheld planetarium called Pocket Stars. […]
Jessica on October 7, 2007 at 9:48 pm: 2
Is your lady okay?
Astroprof on October 8, 2007 at 12:40 am: 3
She’s still in the hospital, but she is doing much better than when I took her there.