SkySafari 4 Plus: Map the Universe! Discover Sun, Moon, Mars, Stars, Planets, and Satellites with your telescope and NASA space missions! App Reviews

Ive just spent two cloudy nights playing with this program and Im astounded! You can look everywhere in the sky and manipulate the map so intuitively and effortlessly that you soon become intuitively familiar with the layout of the sky, the arrangement of the objects in it and how the date, time of day and your location on earth affect what you will see. And its beautiful! Oh lord, is it beautiful! Tomorrow is supposed to be clear and Im going to try pointing at objects and see the screen center on what Im pointing at. Cant wait!

Note the number of five-star reviews. They are right. You cant afford not to have this. Features not obvious include the ability to enter your scope and eyepiece data and then get an eyepiece view, and to create custom observing lists. While I have a few other astronomy apps on my iPad, this is the only one I use. How they could create such an in-depth app and sell it for such a bargain price is a mystery. Buy it today!

Ive used SkySafari for several years and it has taught me amazing things about the night skies. It is a delight just to point it to an area and be able to identify the constellations and see between the brighter stars to the faint Deep Sky Objects. With binoculars and a telescope this app has been my constant companion on starry nights. Now I have teamed my GoTo telescope with SkySafari and SkyFi that enables my telescope to be directly connected to SkySafari. I no longer have to key information I find in SkySafari into the hand controller; I simply touch the object and touch GoTo and vrooom off goes my telescope directly to this deep sky object. This has transformed the experience of my non-astronomy friends who have no patience for the time spent between target acquisitions. SkySafari is as important an element in my observing as my best Televue eyepiece.

So instead of providing users who already, uh, paid for the previous releases, they decide to launch a "new" major upgrade as a different "name" and charge us again. I mean, come on, there are plenty of iOS apps that started on version 1, are now on version 30 and havent charged any extra for their releases - including major and complete overhauled ones. While the application is indeed solid and very useful for anyone that can look up to the skies, this greedy factor trashes them to the point one star is way too much for them.

I had read many good reviews about this program so I purchased it for my iPad. I have also downloaded a few FREE celestial apps also. For the money, this app is only slightly better than the free ones. And I just noticed that a few day after I got this version (4), they came out with version 5 plus and want $8 more! Really!! I had originally gave 3 stars but changed it to 2 for this reason alone. Sometimes it gets quirky with the iPad. If the tablet goes to sleep while program is running, upon waking the calibration is way off and I have to restart the program which means going back to iPad home screen which is white light. Another quirk is with the free apps, you can get the projected path of the star or planet. Actually gives you the time when it will be in your viewing area. Not with this app. This app does have some nice features but for the main intention, its just okay. People that give rave reviews have obviously not tried some of the free apps that are just as good if not a little better.

There is so much to say about this app. Its incredible. If you have been struggling with finding objects in the night sky using charts, leave the charts inside and bring Sky Safari 4+ In the field and for reference. There are so many settings that cant be detailed here. Most notable is the use of the finder and eyepieces on the screen. I have both my finder and finder eyepiece configured and showing on the screen.This works incredibly well to find objects. Also the view in the eyepiece of DSOs such Messier objects looks similar to the view in the telescope (10" reflector 25mm eyepiece) e.g. Wild Duck cluster.You need the plus for this view. Support is responsive and excellent. Electronics take too long and are often inaccurate.. You learn the sky better with this app. Its great with the IPad landscape view.Also with the iPhone in which the view is more compact. Reasonably priced for the results you get from the app.

This app is superior to any other astronomy app. Hands down. I would like to see mapping overlays for Ha and the ifn, galactic cirrus, to help plan composition during my imaging runs. There are so many sky surveys Availible that neither of these overlays should be a problem.