This app was mentioned in 16 comments, with an average of 2.75 upvotes
Mobile Observatory has a bunch of extra features, you can even look up in which positions the Galilean Moons are, in case you have a telescope.
I like Star Chart. It's available for both Android and iPhone. Works better with iPhone IMO. Mobile Obversatory is another good one for Android. I also recommend getting Clear Sky Droid. Learn how to read the chart and you won't waste your time observing during poor seeing conditions
If you use Android phone, try using Mobile Observatory. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kreappdev.astroid&hl=en_US
It will give you a simple list of what is up in the night sky, when they rise, at peak time to observe, and when they set.
>Man, the moon was awesome yesterday. And I remembered that Google had an awesome augmented reality star map app of sorts. Couldn't find it yesterday and SkyView was baaaaad
If you want a more advanced app, try Mobile Observatory. It shows dates for eclipses, the positions of other planets' moons (useful if you watch them through a telescope and want to know which moons you're looking at), and more. It's a paid app though.
Mobile Observatory is a great app, doesn't look that great. But, hey, its on sale this week.
Mobile Observatory may not be the prettiest app but it has a lot of features. It can even tell you in which position Jupiter's (Galilean) moons are, so that you can tell which one is which when watching Jupiter through a telescope.
I hope they release it soon, it looks like a very useful app. For Astronomy I use mobile observatory, it is by far the best astronomy app I've used but it doesn't have any photography specific features Edit: link to mobile observatory https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kreappdev.astroid
This has been my app of choice for a few years:
I checked in an app called Mobile Observatory and you're right! The site says the pictures were taken August 13, 2016. On that day Venus was definitely further away than Mercury.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kreappdev.astroid
If you like the bells and whistles as I do, then you'll like Mobile Observatory. He just came out with the second iteration of this app, and the first one was great as well.
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Main Features
- Zoomable sky map showing stars, planets, asteroids, and more (above and below the horizon)
- Interactive top-down view of the Solar System
- Live mode (point device on sky and get information on what you see)
- Calendar showing detailed descriptions of celestial events
- Push celestial events to your phone's calendar and set a reminder alarm
- Rise, set, and transit times for any object
- Position of any object in the sky (altitude and direction)
- Twilight times, length of day
- Bright Star Catalog (~9000 stars) with detailed information
- More than 400 000 additional stars from the PPM Star Catalog (Android 3.1 or higher required)
- 2500 selected NGC objects (galaxies, clusters, ...)
- Messier Catalog (110 objects) complete with images
- Caldwell Catalog (110 objects) complete with images
- Hidden Treasures Catalog (109 objects) complete with images
- Meteor streams (begin, maximum, hourly rate, ...)
- Lunar and solar eclipses information
- Lunar librations, ascending node, maximum declination
- Bright comets (automatically selected according to the date)
- Dwarf planets: The five known dwarf planets
- Minor planets: bright, near Earth, trans-Neptune (more than 10000 in the database)
- Update database online: download up-to-date orbital elements of comets and minor planets
- Moon phases, the apparent view of the sun and planets
- Current image of the Sun and sunspot number
- Automatically generated visibility report for any object
- Simulation of light pollution
- Intuitive User Interface: quickly find what you are looking for
- Widget with rise & set times of the Sun and Moon
- Maintain your favorite locations in a list
- Automatic location determination from the mobile network or GPS
- Select a location from a built-in database or online via Google Maps
- 400 observatory locations
- Choose any time and date
- Detailed ephemeris, visibility information of all objects
- Dates of conjunctions between any object with planets or the Moon
- 3D-view of the Moon and the planets
- Accurate calculations for dates between 1900 and 2100
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https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kreappdev.astroid&hl=en_US
> Wouldn't those magazines write-ups occur 1 month or so before the event?
Generally they're further out than that. They were covering the August 2017 eclipse over a year ahead of time. Most meteor showers they'll at least do a blog post on their website or something 2-3 months out. But yeah, you won't get "predictions" from them -- that's where things like CalSky and Stellarium come in.
> it didn't have date for next year
Wow, you're right! I'm sure that their software is capable of predictions an arbitrary distance out; it might just be they need to update the website. I see that the drop-down only shows 2016, 2017, and 2018.
That said, Stellarium is just as accurate as CalSky, but has the disadvantage of not explicitly calling out certain events. For example, it will show you the Leonids radiant and where it will appear in the sky at any given date/time, but doesn't tell you when the predicted peak is.
For things like lunar and solar eclipses, it does show those, and it's very accurate, as long as you have your timezone and location set properly.
For example, here's the January lunar eclipse from my backyard in San Diego: https://imgur.com/dU4v1vI and it even shows the "blood moon" in the simulation. Note at the bottom left, the location is marked (the 31m is the altitude, in meters). To the bottom right, note the "UTC-08:00" -- the timezone correction, so the date and time are presented as local.
Another useful resource for timing eclipses is timeanddate.com: https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/lunar/2019-january-21
And finally, a tool I use very frequently for time/date sensitive events, without being tethered to the Internet, is Mobile Observatory: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kreappdev.astroid -- it will accurately display things like moon phases, moon libration, eclipses (both solar and lunar), and even highlights interesting conjunctions for you.
My favourite is Mobile Observatory: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kreappdev.astroid
It has a wealth of valuable information.