Tag: southern

Four must apps for the night sky!

kevinjamesng5 Comments

When I prepare to show people the night sky outdoors, or the backyard astronomy to the patrons of the Stardome observatory in Auckland. Sometimes I need a little assistance from a couple, or a few helping apps, or friends. In some case the night sky do change monthly or seasonally. In some case in Auckland it rains weeks on end till the whole night sky changes it’s direction, like finding your way again. and some times using a Planisphere doesn’t help either in the dark. but a red lighted torch does help in finding and reading the Planisphere.

There’s always the ones that I, figure to know my way around with the common ones in the Southern Hemisphere. Like down South, the Southern cross, which is found by using the pointer stars of Alpha and Beta Centauri, other stellar objects in the night skies, two diamond pave clustered set like global clusters Omega Centauri (NGC 5139) the larger of the two of to 47 Tuc (NGC 104), the Orion Nebula in the Orion constellation, right next to the ever protector Taurus the bull with its eye full watching the star Aldebaran protecting the group of seven sisters Pleiades (Greek), or known as Subaru ( Japanese), over here it’s natively called Matariki ( Maori).

Other observational stellar objects in the night sky during the summery season, there are few which inspired JK Rolling’s Characters out from the Harry Potter series, the two armpits of the Titan Hunter Orion, Bellatrix also the faithful pet companion Sirius the dog, hence Sirus Black Harry’s Godfather. Or in the night sky the constellation is just called Canis Major followed by the little dog Canis Minor.

As for the cold wintery crispy nights, there are few of which to be seen, in the unstrangness of all nights, the constellation Scorpio finally battle it out with Orion in being the deputy to the fallen sheriff Taurus. to warrant in defense of Pleiades and her seven sisters. Also as to witness this is the timely arrival of Saturn and it’s companion moons.

As for the trusty Apps, or the four must when you’re lost for words, or in your thoughts in trying to figure that stellar object out!

Stellarium

Stellarium is a very easy App to work around as I’ve explain in my previous blog ” Lost” this got to be one of the easy Apps used for the iPhone.

How many times that, when you look up the stars and wonder which is which. Well few weeks ago I’ve download a very useful app from the iTunes store. It’s very, well so very useful. I practical use it when I’m outdoors viewing the stars at night with the very helpful assistance of manually use a Meade telescope.

The app is call Stellaruim, I’ve used in the past, the PC version, it’s very easy to use. When you use the Pc version it’s best to locate your position first, so the Stellaruim knows where you are so it can best find you the viewing positions for you to view the stars and other stella objects in the night and day skies. the program is very easy to use it has time-lapse so you could see the motions through out the night and day sky forward and back in time as the sky motions around.

One of the many features around it, it has settings menu, which allow you to customised your background,scripts into the software, like changing the background sence, the amount of information that you like to see on, like, star lines, constellations grid lines. Other features that I like about stellaruim is the information about the stella object that you’ve lock on, when using the app it does the same but with the an extra feature which utilities the GPS features on the iPhone. which give you more exact viewable location.

With the iPhone app it’s a much nice feel, your astronomy friends will probably envy for the abilities it does, it’s portable than using a laptop, and you can utilize the touch features of the iPhone, and it’s quite sassy!

For like to know more?

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/stellarium/id382624365?mt=8

http://www.stellarium.org/

Planets

Planets is another iPhone app, it very least complex than the Stellarium app to work around with. Such features are it runs on the same type of goto platform with the iPhone GPS system gyro system to figure out where you’re  in the world, and where you’re pointing at too in the night or day sky. Also it has features that let you go explore that object in within the App in either in two or three dimensional vieiws. Also an extra plus the App is free too! are you excite!

when viewing in 2D, it show’s up the objects in real-time in a stamp set reference, with compass bearing points, to suit your directional location. This gets even more fun when you switch to the 3D screen on, it gives you more of the encompassing view in your present surroundings above and below the Horizons. A few advantages that it has that Stellaurim doesn’t have it’s the light spectrum which you could see, it allows you to switch between X-Ray, Visible, Hydrogen alpha, infrared, Microwave, and Radio spectra Background back into time.

Another brilliant aspect which I like mostly best with this app is the optimum best viewing times of each planets that shows up in the night sky, it’s rising, it’s setting, but the experience is uniquely to your geo positioning of your iPhone, which gives you a great advantage. 

Also there’s a globe slides for different planets, but unfortunately it doesn’t comes with Pluto, Sorry Pluto! it’s interactive with the iPhone touch screen you could slide it, finger pitch to go near and  a far, and even more to rotate the planets around to. I would say this app is practically diversity  which its abundance of features it has just to get you going and start for the night sky. but one good thing though it comes in free, but it’s only for iPhone, and iPad.

For like to know more?

http://itunes.apple.com/nz/app/planets/id305793334?mt=8

http://www.qcontinuum.org/planets/

Moon Globe

This app is basically straight forward it’s ever so like one of your maps that you find on one of your lonely Planet travel guides, but it’s less hasten in a way of carrying that actual moon globe with you all the time. This one is great, it shows you the main points of  seas craters,  of the moon. also for the space historians out there there’s landing positions information and other NASA lunar landers, Apollo lunar modules landed on the moon. Plus the details of the moon is amazing detail also changing the aspect lighting.  It has another feature by  switching to the globe mode on you could pitch orientated the position of the Moon, look in closely in the awesome surface details like you peering, outside the window of your Spacecraft or Starship in that manner.  This Moon Globe is will keep you guessing of what you might expect in Google Moon, but even better, it’s mobility, and the iPhone’s intense 960 by 640 resolutions Retina display. but the only thing it still does have yet it’s Astronauts Neil’s Armstrong’s timeless boot print.

For like to know more!

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/moon-globe/id333180321?mt=8

Mars Globe

I have a friend whom adores the topic  planet Mars, I’m pretty sure this This App is right for her. she loves talking about the rovers whom are exploring the Martian surface which it shows the locations doing there studious reportings, also it shows the density depth by showing in different various colours, another option that it has  is the back and forward in time in years or months of the availble  sunlight, the darkest it gets.  The details are Awesome, you could see the large Mountain Everest high volcanic regions mounting  up on the surface  to  also the large city-wide encompassing craters. to it’s legendary white polar north and south  ice capes.

For like to know more!

http://itunes.apple.com/app/mars-globe/id324185998

There been an updates following  that there a further two more apps which are highly recomended which I’ve reviewed after now using them constantly.  star walk  also Solar walk.

Postcards from Jupiter.

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Jupiter is offered as seen in the night sky of Auckland. Which is an indicator that summer is beckoning. With that in mind that could means suggestions of the swimming, surfing,  the beach and warm weather activities. For us Southern Hemisperers more sunshine after two seasons of deprive sunlight. Yes!…. more sunlight, thawing us out from winter. I can hear the dripping water drops already!

When viewing Jupiter for the very first time, it’s is breathtaking as to for Saturn, Omega Centauri, Orion’s Nebula, and many more in the night sky. For the very first time, you could see band of divisions colours pallettes of browns  to light kakai, when looking further, with a stronger lens, you could make out the, storms, the layering of sheer gaseous steaming atomsphere. Other thing is that it’s one of the brightest stella objects in the night sky due to it’s large reflective sphereical volume.  next to Venus, making the rusty Mars looks, well light red dull in comparsion.

Other mind numbing  breathtaking aspect is looking back in time, due to that it takes time for packets of light/ photons to travel over extended distance to reach to your eyes.  For Jupiter it’s only least two hours reflect one way, so when  texting, Facebooking, twittering back expect delays, and a very large power and phone bill. But if you do the math of considering that the velocity of light is constant, using Velocity= Distance over Time, figuring out time is Time=Distance over Velocity! and there you go the Time it takes to your messaging from Jupiter.

Being the fifth planet in the Solar system. Jupiter can be seen during the night sky rising from the east to west like most other planets, behaves in the same manner in the Southern Hemisphere. Unless you’re Pluto, which decides to be the cool trendy, rebellious one out there having it’s own slightly angle  path from the others.

Jupiter’s atmosphere is not Kyoto Protocol friendly. The atmospheric gases contains Methane, Ethane, Hydrogen, Ammonia, water, and other minor gases.  Jupiter itself is pretty much of a violent environmental beautiful disater, then again Jupiter hardly sign up for the Protocol after all, then again it’s a gasous Planet.

 Within the shears of layers of Jupiter’s atmosphere, it become even more dense. An internal  core  containing seas of  liquid metallic Hydrogen.  Other features of Jupiter is the red-eye which is the best feature of the Planet, which is an ongoing storm having a size of larger than Earth, which definitely out storm any Earth’s  cyclone or hurricane.

Jupiter has four main moons, which is larger than our, Earth’s own moon Lunar. the first four Castillo, Ganymede, Europa, and Io plus sixty other moons.  Some are susceptive of containing the traces of life forms.  Some say that Jupiter and Saturn are keeping a tally of saying whom have the most moons! Then again the numbers are ever so rise on discovery.

Jupiter itself is a natural defensive system for Earth, it deters asteroids into itself, away from Earth. This is due to the immense nature of Gravity it has to pull objects into clouded stomach, something like a big brother protecting  it’s smaller brothers and sisters. like the Shoemaker Levy incident which has been one of the astronomical highlights of the late twentieth Century   One unquiet aspect of Jupiter, it has a ring which expanse ever so slim that its other brother Saturn which is ever so promenade profound. Hadn’t for the largest two Planets Jupiter and Saturn Earth would be a different place right now, past,  present and future.

Jupiter will be up for till the end of the Auckland’s summer night season, till then another promande object in the night sky will prevail Saturn, with is own story… that’s yet to be fortold!