SkySafari 5
If you've used an older version of SkySafari, here's what's new:
1) Rewrite of the compass code for smoother and more accurate sky tracking.
2) Tonight at a Glance: the location and rise/set times of the Sun, Moon, Planets, and International Space Station in one handy view!
3) Notifications when the ISS and other major satellites will pass overhead, and when the planets rise!
4) Completely new sound effects, and a new look to the sky and horizon. A brighter, more visible Moon.
5) Object lists in the Search menu now show thumbnail images for every object which has a photograph, and also now shows their rise/set times.
6) Updated object descriptions. Every object now has a description!
7) Reworked Time Flow controls. Set the date and time directly from the main toolbar.
If you haven't used SkySafari before, here's what you can do with it.
• See an eclipse now, in the past or in the future! Simulate the night sky from anywhere on Earth many years in the past or in the future! Animate meteor showers, comet approaches, transits, conjunctions, and other celestial events with SkySafari’s Time Flow.
• Locate the Sun, Moon, or Mars from our extensive database and track the arrow to be directed to their exact locations in the sky before you. See spectacular views of Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, and other planets!
• Learn about the history, mythology, and science of heavens! Browse from hundreds of object descriptions, astronomical photographs, and NASA spacecraft images in SkySafari. Explore tons of NASA Space Missions!
All this is built into SkySafari 5 – no need for an Internet connection. It's a powerful planetarium that fits in your pocket, puts the universe at your fingertips, and is incredibly easy to use! This app is everything the casual stargazer will ever want.
Additional Features:
• 120,000 stars; over 200 star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies; all major planets and moons, and dozens of asteroids, comets, and satellites including the International Space Station (ISS).
• Animated meteor showers with complete viewing information & spectacular graphics.
• Night Vision – Preserves your eyesight after dark.
• Google Maps Integration – Choose your location from a built-in Maps view.
• Horizon Panoramas – choose from beautiful built-in vistas, or customize your own!
For telescope control, a bigger database, and more features, check out SkySafari 5 Plus and SkySafari 5 Pro!
Category : Education
Reviews (23)
I'm really happy with this app, I found the stars that I look at out of my window every night, it's so cool to know the names. It's easy to find certain stars you want to find if you have curtain land marks you can use to know where you are in the map and your sky. It's really amazing.
Liked the app, but right now it's unusable. When I try to open it, it just shows '9 data files downloading', but the bar constantly remains at 0%. (Pixel 6 Pro, previously saw same behavior on my old Pixel 4XL). The notification in the top bar does not disappear for as long as I don't terminate the app. Completely resetting / deleting the app's data didn't help. Will uninstall and forget if problem persists.
Regularly gives notifications that you don't seem to be able to turn off, and they come with a loud and obnoxious sound that you can't change even if you find the notifications themselves helpful. I was hoping to spend longer with this app getting to know it as the initial interface is a bit overwhelming - but the notifications are driving me mad so I'm just going to uninstall it. Very disappointed given that the Pro version of this seems to be the most widely recommended astronomy app.
One of the best astronomy apps out there. I class myself as interested in, but not much more than, an absolute beginner. The design and interface is mostly intuitive. The sound effects are very much complimentary and strike the right tone. Information provided is clear and informative, without being too brief but neither too technical. There is a glitch in the sky-week button as it permanently says unable to download data. It has never worked since install. That aside, neat app
This is the Free version, which is OK, but quite basic. I had previously paid for the Plus editions of versions 3, 4 and 5 which were very good, but as each new version came out, the version I had would stop working, and there was no discount for the new version. Whatever developments were made in the background for each new version, the user experience remained largely the same, but I couldn't just stick with an older version as it stopped working. Very unfair of the devs and I won't buy again
Best sky map I've seen so far. Very accurate and with a more than decent catalog. The amount of information about each entry is also exceptional, so it's not just a map, it's an encyclopedic map. If you have a good, large apperture telescope, the free version might be missing a few notable entries, so you should consider one of the pro versions. But with most common entry level telescopes the free catalog is more than you'll be able to spot anyways... so go ahead and install the free version.
Seems simple enough to use. Sometimes I feel the music is a good accompaniment, other times it is an annoyance. For which I have a mute! 😂 Nice to see the pictures of the constellations with the stars. Can be difficult to pick out planets when they are clustered together, but will be the same for any app for the non professional / experienced enthusiast.
My favorite astronomy app, after trying 5-6 others. I like being able to toggle the compass. Descriptions are very informative. I like that you can set it to notify you of events (like satellites/planets rising). My only issue is that, although I've disabled sound for notifications via Android 8.0, notifications still have a sound. I'd rather be able to set it to vibrate or just silent, but still have a notification icon. Other than that, no issues and super useful!
Very nice design and a wonderful tool for amateur astronomy. I'm really satisfied and happy of having such amazing features in a single app. I love the flexibility of the settings and the huge objects catalogue. The only thing I would love to have in the app that isn't currently possible is tge ability to rotate the celestial sphere without being stopped at the zenith, because current rotation can be annoying sometimes when trying to look at objects near the zenith.
I like the app a lot, but has notifications for events. Great, but they keep coming even if I have them off. Now it's started notifications with a ping noise. I'm keeping the app for now, hopefully this is just a big or there's a notification option that I missed, but if this keeps happening, I'm going to have to drop the rating and delete the application.
This app is phenomenal! It is by far the best sky viewing app available. It is the only one with a live sky view for free. I also love the calendar choice of viewing any night in the past. The graphics are great. The color is sharp. The plus and minus to view deeper in space is wondrrful. I could go on and on. Thank you so much! I really appreciate what you have done.
Great tool with lots of useful features. Very helpful for astrophotography and planning for rocket launch photography. I'm kind of frustrated when it keeps switching from manual movement (pinching and dragging) to auto movement (based on phone position/tilt), but that may be user error on my part. Restarting the app seems to solve it. Otherwise 5 stars.
This app would be much better if it was at all possible to turn notifications off. They are off on my phone, but all that does is get rid of the pop-ups. So now, even though my phone is on silent, the notification noise plays. I've checked the app and there doesn't seem to be an off button. I'm getting annoyed with my phone making noise (when it's supposed to be on silent) just because Neptune is rising or something that doesn't really matter at 4pm in summer.
Pretty good, except it does not include a number of satellites in the data list. I found this to be rather disappointing, because the app has so many other really great features. I just personally think that the number of moons a planet has should be one of the things you can conveniently glean from a data list.
There were several on the market within Google Play Store for me to try out. At first I was a little overwhelmed with Sky Safari and it's user interface. I had a lot of options that I had to sort through in order to know what I was doing. Some of the other apps were almost too easy. So as I became more familiar with Sky Safari, it clearly became my leading contender. My only complaint is my mobile keyboard does not work when in night mode. Sky Safari tries to make it red, but makes it unusable
Crisp, colorful, (very) user-friendly guide to the night sky ... Even below the horizon. Super-Cool App!!! 😊 The Cosmic Collection, a $3.99 add-on provides really cool graphics, especially of the planets, and galactic perspective for stars. Its features are available when you select a celestial object, in an expanded drop-down menu.
It looks as if it could be very useful but it has stopped/closed five times tonight. I suspect this is fixable. What I want to do is to pick another place, Hawaii, a different date, June 7, and a different timezone, - 10, and a different time , around 10, 11pm and look for crux, the Southern Cross. I had difficulties doing that especially when it kept closing.
CONCERNED ABOUT PRIVACY. When opening the app the first time it requests access to photos, media, and files. Only options are accept and deny. After clicking "deny" it says access to storage is required. There are no files on my phone that would be relevant, so what do they want with my files??? Too risky for me.
It is my favorite sky app I use, and have been using it for a few years now. But recently it stopped working, uninstalled/reinstalled and worked fine for a bit, than same problem happened. Reinstalling it doesn't work this time. Issue seems to come from the "center" icon, it zoomed right into literally nothing, and it is stuck there. 5 stars if this can be fixed, I love this app!
Seems, every time I checked notifications, there was SkySafari downloading a file. Curious to learn what the heck all the downloading was about [its already using nearly half a Gig of storage], I tried opening it, but couldn't, because it won't let you in while it's downloading. If it was something like updated comet trajectories, I might tolerate this, but who knows, because after several more failed attempts to open the blasted thing, I gave up and uninstalled it! SkySafari used to be great!
It would be BY FAR the best sky map out there, if it wasn't for its lack of AR... most others do, the iOS version does... I'm puzzled as to why this one doesn't. It's got the best interface, featureset, looks... but because of the places I usually visit, mostly surrounded by hills and/or mountains, augmented reality is a must for me.
As a professional astronomer I look for tools like this that are open source this one fills the bill I don't really need the extra tools for the money it's just nice to have handy around friends and family to point out the obvious things in the sky. Addendum: I'm not sure whether the music embedded or not embedded could be causing my data usage to increase I'll try turning the music off but at present this application uses too much bandwidth and I may just simply revert back to Stellarium.
Issues i had with the app are: Image is sometimes shaking uncontrollably, even when i hold the phone still or put it down. Even though im only navigating with my fingers and looking around,the app would turn on the compas mode on its own forcing me to view the sky in the direction that phone is facing. This happens repeatedly. If this was the only astro app on the planet, i would use it,because it is better then nothing, but there are better apps.