STAR WALK – Discover a galaxy of stars and planets

App updated 14 September 2010, developed by Vito Technology Inc., £1.79.
RATED 5 Stars!

Gaze into the beauty of the night sky… In the daytime! If you, like me, are a part-time stargazer, and by part-time I mean only able to see a droplet of what’s really out there due to city lights, lack of telescope and of course, clouds, you will love this mobile planetarium app.

Star Walk holds information and the position of over 9,000 stars, planets, constellations and other celestial objects. You can hunt in a digital night sky for your star-sign, then using the time-machine function watch your constellation spin all the way back to your birth date, or fast-forward and discover where Mars will be on your 50th birthday.

This isn’t just an app for the amateur stargazer; this is for the more serious astronomer too. The opening screen uses your current location and tells you when the sun will rise and fall, what phase the moon is in, what other planets you may see in the sky, with there respective rise and fall times plus their elevation angle. All this info can be easily shown for the previous day, or the following day, or even Christmas day!

Star Walk has a bookmark feature allowing you to save your discoveries, to come back to them later and share with friends via email. You can zoom in and out of the digital night sky and most named stars, planets and other activity such as meteor showers can be selected, then Star Walk gives you masses of information on your finds. Distance from Earth, size, gravity, speed of orbit, what constellation something is part of, the origin of a stars name… the amount of information stored in this app is astonishing!

Star Walk’s finale feature is impressive; using the digital compass in the iPhone you can tilt your phone towards the sky and see a live view of the stars above you on your screen. The picture will move as you scour the heavens showing clearly how well aligned this app is with the constellations. With this you can trace the night sky, follow stellar activity or perhaps take a peek at what the stars look like from the other side of the world.