iStellar

Astro Arts has done the right thing in correcting the upgrade path of iStellar. My iStellar 1 upgraded to iStellar 2 as promised. This is an impressive upgrade. I'll need to learn its many new features before writing a full review. Buy this app to support these devs as they perfect a truly original and comprehensive star chart. Descriptive content is still minimal, but the chart is becoming awesome and there are great efforts at an interface allowing detailed control of all elements. It's a bit buggy in this release, but nothing serious. Stars may stop twinkling, and the buttons controling the grids don't always work. Prior Reviews: Version 1.2.2 fixes the problem of crashing upon launch. Other tweeks needed: • Awkward to have to push a start button to get the clock to advance in real time. Clock should run automatically by default. • Light pollution mode needs to be more gradual. Turning it on wipes out too many stars even at the lowest setting. • Darkness is not calculated properly. Sky is shown as too light to see stars even when it is actually completely dark outside. Original review: (Other apps have since caught up in teaching the constellations.) Best App for Learning Constellations The high price hurts sales, but this is actually the best app in the store for learning the constellations. It's not perfect, but feels like a work in progress written by people with significant expertise in astronomy, programming, and user interface design. I predict they will fix the flaws and would like to see the app receive more support from star gazers. Not all other astronomy apps show cartoons for the constellations, and many that do include only an incomplete set. In nearly every case in other apps, the constellation lines are arbitrary rather than clear (why draw Geminii as a box with a line off it when it can appear as stick-figure twins?), and the cartoon is an arbitrary superimposition of a character that does not fit on top of its stars (why show the Serpent Bearer's serpent not following its line of stars?). This is the only app showing carefully conceived, beautifully drawn lines and cartoons for every constellation. I have wondered since childhood how the ancients saw pictures in the night sky. This app shows me how. Improvements needed: Night vision mode, especially in menus; foreground added to landscape shown at horizon; option to see below the horizon to see the gorgeous cartoons in the opposite hemisphere; short histories of the constellations.

The "Light Pollution" setting is a brilliant feature for deciding what you could actually see in-town. This is also one of the only apps I've seen that includes the Constellation Picture/Artwork so you can try to visualize what you actually see. The app feels very light-weight and not prone to crashing from heavy use. I can go stargazing anytime and anyplace using this app! Search for a constellation, check the name of a star, or simply admire the sunset, twinkling stars, the Milky Way, etc. iStellar is no less functional than an actual star atlas/planetarium, and far more easy to control!

There are now seven serious star-charting apps in the iTunes Store (as of 30 January 2009). Each is good in its own ways, and each has its weaknesses. iStellar is one of the simpler apps. It starts up quickly, draws gorgeous sky images, and is very easy to use. Users will especially appreciate the beautiful full-color stars and constellation artwork. As of this writing, iStellar is the only app that includes artwork for all 88 constellations. It also offers a wider zoom range than any app except GoSkyWatch, and a very nice user interface for setting the time and showing time-lapse animation. One nice feature for beginners is that iStellar draws planets as stars--the way they actually appear in the sky. Most of the other apps use either special symbols or photographs taken from space. The main weakness of iStellar is that it doesn't tell you anything else about the objects in the sky. Nor can you search for an object by name; the app simply shows you what you'll see in a given direction, from a given place, at a given time. You can't see what's below your current horizon, so you have to change the time or location to view the other half of the sky. The settings in iStellar give you full control over which extra elements are drawn on the chart: constellation lines, names, and pictures; names of planets and brighter stars; and a collection of 110 clusters, nebulae, and galaxies (represented by colored symbols, not images). There's also a light pollution setting that can hide the fainter stars. The closest competitors to iStellar at this time are Star Walk (even prettier images but less control over the appearance); iAstronomica (full-sky map and even easier to use, but shows a lot less); GoSkyWatch (wider zoom range but plainer images); and Distant Suns (much more information but also much more complex). If you want a more advanced app to complement (not replace) iStellar, consider Starmap or Uranus. (This review is of version 1.0.4 of iStellar.)