Review: Explore The Heavenly Bodies With iWindows Mobile AstroNavigator II
If it is nighttime where you live, open up a door or a window and take look up in the sky. Go ahead. I’ll wait. Great…you’re back. So, what did you see? A whole bunch of twinkling lights? I bet you can remember far enough back to your high school astronomy class to realize that many of those are fiery balls of gas called stars (and the one zooming across the sky in a straight line was probably an airplane). Others may have been planets, moons, heck even a galaxy or space satellite (or space junk) or two.
In olden times, shepherds in the field used to look at those same stars. Gazing into the sky, they would imagine they saw pictures in the stars and created masterful stories about Orion, Queen Cassiopea, The Big Bear, and many others.
I know, you already knew all of this. I mean, you did take high school astronomy and even went to the planetarium to see the Pink Floyd laser show. Seriously though, when I was in high school and college I used to impress and amuse my dates with my masterful knowledge of the stars. Now, I want to pass on this knowledge to my sons, and teach them about the constellations. But, high school astronomy was a long time ago. I tried to get out one of those paper charts, but really finding your location on those wheels (and holding it in one place) can be tricky, and who carries around a red flashlight with them to read the thing. So, that project sort of fell by the wayside until recently when I learned of iWindows Mobile’s new AstroNavigatorII. I had been looking for an excuse to review one of the iWindows Mobile programs since the line was launched a few months ago, and this seemed to be the perfect opportunity.
When you fire up AstroNavigatorII, it is like sitting in a planetarium. You will see a display showing all of the visible stars, constellations, planets, Milky Way, and even a grid overlayed to help you navigate (on the top and left side of the grid you will find compass directions to help orient yourself). Too much information? No problem. Just tap the wrench icon and a popup menu will appear, allowing you to filter out any group of items on the display with the touch of a finger.
One feature which I felt was missing, however, was the ability to set the magnitude of the display. You can only turn the stars on or off of the display. When they are on, they are all displayed. It would be nice if you could set the magnitude in order to display brighter stars and eliminate dimmer ones in the background, which can be a distraction.
Of course, the most attractive feature of any program in the iWindows Mobile line is the finger friendly controls. If you want to search the night sky, just drag the image to move it across the screen. Flick it and you will send the sky spinning. I have to admit that this did give me a certain larger than life feeling as I sent the entire galaxy spinning on its axis. This allows the entire visible night sky to be visible, even from the tiny screen on your device.
If you want more detail on a particular sector, just use your finger to zoom in and out. To do this, you will notice the small toggle on the left. Grab it with your finger and drag it up to zoom in and down to zoom out. When you release it, the button will automatically return to its spot in the center of the right hand side of your screen. I have to be honest, this is probably one of the best features I have seen in any program. My first thought was, this is how scroll bars on Windows Mobile devices should have been designed. It is attractive, finger friendly, and easy to use. Other developers could certainly learn a thing or two from this feature.
Right about now, if you have ever looked at the stars in your life, you are probably thinking to yourself, this all sounds great if the sky were a static object to look at. But come on, I mean, this is not some Ode on a Grecian Urn, which stays the same for thousands of years this is the sky. It is different every night. What can I tell you, you are correct. The sky looks different based upon the date, time of day, and your location on the Earth (we won’t even get into the three dimensional aspects of leaving the Earth to view the stars).
Well, let’s start with your location. You probably remember that there is a Northern Sky and a Southern Sky, and different constellations are visible from each. Not only that, but your location within each hemisphere determines which constellations will be visible from your location and where in the sky they will be located. So, the first thing you will want to do is set your location. To do this, tap the location button under the wrench. You will now be presented with a zoomable map of the Earth. There are three ways to set your location:
- tap any point on the map to set that location;
- tap the city name and scroll through the list;
- activate your GPS
Activate your GPS? Yes, that is correct. If you have a GPS (and have I mentioned that my Mogul now has one built in?) then AstroNavigatorII will find your location automatically and set the display accordingly. It will even reorient the screen based upon your heading.
Of course, this all still brings us back to the original point, that the sky changes over time. From hour to hour, day to day, the stars which you can se are going to change. Of course, this can be controlled easily as well. Tap the time button on the bottom, and you will see a display showing dials with today’s date and the current time highlighted. Just use your fingers to scroll through these dials. You can set any historical date to see the sky your ancestors may have viewed, or fly through time to see what the sky will look like hundreds of years from now.
This is what the sky would have looked like in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776…the day the 13 American colonies declared their freedom from England. When you are done, just tap the Now button to return to the current date and time.
This is all well and good for gazing at the sky generally, but what if you are looking for a specific object. I do this all the time. I might hear a blurb about Mars being visible in the sky and go outside to try to find it. Not to worry. You do not need to scroll and spin through the display hoping to stumble upon it. Just tap the magnifying glass to bring up the search screen.
From the search screen, you can choose to find any constellation, star, or planet. One thing I really appreciated was that one those objects which are visible from your location can be searched.
To search, just select the type of object you are seeking, and then scroll through the unique iWindows Mobile ribbon scroller. This is a great feature, which I first encountered in iWindows Mobile Fun Contacts. Essentially, the alphabet is displayed in a thin ribbon on the right hand side of the screen (I say essentially, because it actually displays only those letters which have entries in the list.). Just drag your finger down the list until you reach the the desired letter. The cool part is that when you press a letter with your finger, it will pop out on the screen, making it extremely easy to find the desired letter, and significantly reducing mistakes. I really like this method of scrolling through a long list.
It is easy and comfortable. I enjoyed it much better than the T9 style input interface used in the locations list (above), and wish an interface more like this one would be implements on that screen as well.
Once you have found the desired object on the list, just tap it. This will return you to the main screen, with the selected object centered and selected. At the bottom of the screen, you will see the name of the item displayed.
Tap the picture to enter an expanded view of the selected object, showing a picture and some statistical data. There are over 9000 objects included in the program. It would have been nice to have a narrative about each object, such as its history, who discovered it, and a little more encyclopedic information about the object — particularly for constellations and planets.
OK, now I can see you throwing your hands up in the air (and waving them like you just don’t care). How can you possibly use a Pocket PC screen to navigate through the stars? Everyone knows that light is the mortal enemy of astronomy. Just this screen gives off enough light to block several thousand stars from view. This just won’t work for us. And you are correct. Light and astronomy are a terrible combination. Which is why AstroNavigatorII offers night mode. Just tap the night mode button and the entire display will turn red (as anyone who has worked in a darkroom knows, red light does not have the same negative effects as white light).
I love having an astronomy program on my Windows Mobile device. I still have mixed emotions when I think back to the days of juggling a star chart and red flashlight in my lap, while trying to “impress” my date by pointing out obscure constellations. This may not be the most feature rich or complex star gazing program, but it will give you all of the tools you need (and an extremely nice interface) to quickly and easily find objects in the sky, and won’t that impress your dates?
What I Liked:
- Easy to use, finger friendly controls and menus
- Scroll ribbon on search screen
- detailed view, with easy to access filters
- Night Mode
What Needs Improvement:
- Can’t set magnitude to filter out dimmer stars
- Location search uses T9 interface
Vital Stats:
Name: AstroNavigatorII
Version: 2.01
Developer: Vito Technologies/iWindows Mobile
Tested On: Windows Mobile 6
Also Available: Windows Mobile 2003(SE), Windows Mobile 5, Windows Mobile Smartphone
Where to Buy: AstroNavigatorII
Price: $19.95
Trial: 20 minutes
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“If it is nighttime where you live, open up a door or a window and take look up in the sky. Go ahead. I’ll wait. Great…you’re back. So, what did you see? A whole bunch of twinkling lights? ”
Lots of clouds. And rain.
I’m not familiar with the details of astronomy software, but I do think that the graphics look more modern and polished than Nomad Electronics Pocket Stars. The 20 minutes trial is short though!
I reviewed this a couple of months back at Eten Blog and I totally enjoyed it. I am not too much of a stars person myself but when I used this with my Glofiish X500 which has a built-in GPS, it will orient the display to where I am facing which I found pretty cool.
I do agree that the finger friendly interface is awesome and what I would associate with iWindowsMobile.com software.
I tried this out, and it isnt that good. Pocket Stars blows it away in terms of features and usefulness.
Things I didnt like about AstroNavigatorII:
1)As you stated, can’t change the magnitude of stars
2) cant navigate the sky too well, cant zoom out enough
3) Stars are tiny pixels, not too useful.
VW, I agree with you that this is clearly designed for a much casual user than Pocket Stars. I saw this as being almost an encyclopedia of the sky, rather than a star gazing tool like Pocket Stars.
Doug
There are some of us who have never studied Astronomy at school, and would love to have at least a basic knowledge of it. Till I read this post I had no idea there was any kind of gadget like this that would help identify constellations, etc., and the price of this one isn’t a major investment in starting to learn.
I’m very grateful for the information – thank you.