A handheld universe
Published on Sep 14, 2006 at 2:41 pm.
2 Comments.
Filed under astronomy.
For the amateur astronomer, a good star chart is an essential tool at the telescope. There are a variety of great star charts that you can buy. But, some years ago, I found my favorite. It is an electronic star chart for a PDA that runs under the Palm operating system. For years, I had thought about getting a PDA. After all, everyone else was getting one, so I went to the store and asked the salesman why I’d want one. He told me that they could hold tens of thousands of names and phone numbers. I told him that I have a telephone book that does that, and besides, I don’t know that many people. Then he told me that you can schedule all your important meetings on one. Well, I teach the same classes at the same time all semester, and as for other meetings, my date planner works fine as does a notice posted on my office bulletin board. So, I didn’t get one. Then, I found out that the things really are useful! You can load astronomy programs on them. So, I bought one, and promptly loaded several programs.
One of my favorites is a planetarium program called 2Sky, and it is available online here. It is absolutely wonderful. A planetarium program is a sort of computerized star chart. You can display the sky, zoom in, zoom out, search for objects by name, and all sorts of other things. It shows stars, the locations of the planets, galaxies, star clusters, nebulae, etc. And, you can set it for your location, date, and time, and it will display the sky as it appears at that time from that place. You can also reset the location to just about anywhere on Earth, and the time and date to just about anywhen. It is great! But wait, it does more! You can click on a star or planet, and it will tell you how far away it is, when it rises, sets, transits the meridian, its celestial coordinates, and its altitude and azimuth. For stars, it will tell you the name, other names it may have, Bayer designation, and Flamsteed number (if it has any of those), its magnitude, and its spectral type (if known). You can get another program that makes the display on the PDA red for night work.
I use this thing all the time. I keep it with me when I teach labs. I can use it to show students where to point a telescope. And, when doing public star parties, sometimes I need a job to my memory of exactly what’s up and where, and it is good for that, too. It is also good when someone asks me “How far away is that star?” It’s like having a universe in your hand!
I’ve got other programs on my PDA, too. They show the moon’s phases (sort of like the applet near the top of my web page), the orientation of Jupiter’s moons, Saturn’s rings and moons, etc. I even have a periodic table that gives you information on elements if you click them. This is a wonderful teaching tool, too, as well as a great tool for an amateur astronomer. Now, I’ve got an older PDA, and a copy of 2Sky that is several versions earlier than the current one, but they suffice for what I do. Eventually, I’ll get a newer, more powerful PDA, and then I’ll get the latest 2Sky update. There are extra databases that you can get that display more objects or dimmer stars.
In the meantime, whenever I am around amateur astronomers, I ask them if they have a Palm PDA. If so, I tell them about 2Sky. There are similar programs for PDAs running other operating systems, but I don’t know much about them. There are also free programs, but I personally like 2Sky better.
So, check out their web page, and check out the program if you’ve got a Palm PDA.
-Astroprof
Astroprof’s Page » The Celestron SkyScout on May 17, 2007 at 3:00 pm: 1
[…] The SkyScout is aimed at amateur astronomers. However, I think that I can make great use of this with my students, too. I am a bit old fashioned, so I can do all of this with a star chart and a reference book, or planetarium software on a computer, but this thing is really nice. And, the current price is about $400. I know a lot of people who would happily pay that for this thing. For people getting to know the sky, I think that this might be a nice aid. And, for more experiences amateur astronomers, it is also a handy reference, but more of a really cool toy. Personally, I already have a PDA with planetarium software on it, and that does it for me, but if you don’t have that, then the SkyScout might interest you, and I can think of a lot of people that might really want both. And, for sure, anyone else out there who teaches astronomy might consider getting a few for your students, too. […]
Astroprof’s Page » Pocket Stars on October 7, 2007 at 12:47 pm: 2
[…] 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. […]