14 DAY TRIAL // Ever since the beginning of time, people wanted to see more and more, find out what secrets their planet held, and when they finally realized that there were virtually no other major discoveries to be made, they went on exploring the heavens. Since then, many dedicated their lives to uncovering the mysteries of the Universe, which is how the Astronomy phenomenon began, and now, after years and years of research and voyages in the near parts of the Solar System, we still know close to nothing compared to the greatness of the Universe.
Most of the knowledge we have on stars and planets has been gathered, and we can find it in bookshops, in the form of maps and books. But, since computers were made available on a larger scale, people wanted to study the sky in real time and from the comfort of their own homes. Carina Software tried to accomplish that and launched two software products to help them in their endeavors: Voyager, a sky viewer for experts, and SkyGazer, a simpler version that targets novices in astronomy and casual astronomers.
The Looks
When you first access SkyGazer, you will be amazed by the complexity of the interface. Upon opening the app you will first encounter a sky chart, as seen from San Francisco. Although the software targets the novice astronomers, some of you may find the interface too complex and pretty hard to learn/understand. Also, it is not so visually impressive in demo mode, but it does unleash its full power after you purchase it, for $29, because you will then gain access to a much larger database of stars, comets, asteroids, and more.
The Works
Even if you start with the program using its default location (San Francisco) and the stars viewed from that position, you can easily change this by accessing the Chart menu, from where you can set a lot of things, like Date and Time, Precession, and the important location. You can also alter a lot of viewing factors by accessing the display panel. As such, you can turn on or off comets, asteroids, the Moon, the Sun, or you can see some constellations this way. Moreover, if you get bored of seeing the stars from the perspective of our planet and want to bring them up close, you can change the view from Earth to Solar System, which gives you a more comprehensive means to see the constellations, meteors, and stars, so you can study them in detail.
But let us concentrate on the Earth view a bit. The most important factor of all is the city you choose, because immediately after you select it SkyGazer will try to focus the sky on it, and keep in mind that there are hundreds of options available for you to choose from. Furthermore, if you get bored with browsing through the cities, you can also see the stars from many of the observatories spread around the world. A voyage that would be very expensive in real life costs you very little in SkyGazer – meaning just the price for the purchase of the app.
After the selection of a city, you can study the stars from a fixed position, or you can make them move in real time by simply accessing the time panel, which is very important because you can change the steps of rotation, from a day to 50 years, or you can define your own time rate. However, Earth view gives you just a little taste of what you can get if you enter the Solar System view. Of course, there is a Solar neighborhood component, but that has not yet been exploited. You can see stars at a maximum distance of 4000 light years from the Sun, but you cannot study them.
Moving on, the Solar System view gives you access to almost all the info astronomers gathered in years of hard work. Now you can access data from a sky atlas view, see the Solar System using different planets' perspective, a comet, the Sun, or even a spacecraft. Statically, or in real time, of course. Just by touching a star, planet, comet or asteroid you will gain access to complex details about it. You get some basic knowledge about the positioning of the star in the Universe, and also a rather expansive description that can include precious information known about it and some history and mythology components, if the star or planet has been known since ancient times.
Furthermore, you can explore meteor showers, and see how they form and the impact they produce in the Solar System. Constellations can also be studied, and even viewed in a familiar form, whereas eclipses and seasons can be viewed immediately upon changing. Paths and phases of planets can be seen and studied also, if your time permits it. SkyGazer allows you to compare the position of a planet to that of a constellation in real time, and I have never seen this feature available in any other similar piece of software until now.
Another interesting thing is that you can also feel your presence in SkyGazer, because you can customize it. You can add grid, rulers, legends, and also leave on screen the things that interest you the most and get back to the others later if you want. This customizing component makes you really see the complexity of the software.
The Good
The Bad
The Truth
SkyGazer features high-quality 3D sky maps and the fact that you can see the sky from wherever you want, whenever you want, and customize your view immerses you even deeper in the strangest and unknown corners of the Universe, leaving you with the hunger for more information. And SkyGazer gives it to you, novice astronomer!
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
