subject: One of the Best Apps for Android – Google Sky Map [print this page] One of the Best Apps for Android Google Sky Map
There are many wonderful and amazing apps available for Android phone. Some are productivity apps, some are utilities, some are games, some are entertainment and some provides wealth of knowledge. One of such best apps for Android is Google Sky Map and is free. I see it as a wonderful tool for astronomers, star gazers and hobbyist. Many times serious hobbies get started with just little bit of curiosity and this can be a good opportunity to initiate something new.
We all love to walk in moon night while watching at moon and stars. Walking in full moon night, looking at the sky, with our loved ones hand in our hand is just a pleasure. For the city-dwellers this could be a rare possibility, but when we go out of the city over the weekend then we can experience the luminous beauty of the night sky. On full moon night, sky is filled with so many twinkling stars and with a little guide book star gazing can be an overwhelming experience. Google Sky Map is such a guide book placed in your palm in the form of an Android app.
When you launch Google Sky Map it first displays the splash screen and then starts showing celestial bodies in the sky with their names. We can see stars, planets with their name and can navigate through map with ease. This little app is packed with many features and some of the features are described briefly below:
Time travel:
This feature is exactly what it claims. It allows you to see the sky at specific time in the past or future. This menu allows you to select specific time and makes a nice sound to give you feel of actual time travel. Once time is set you can see the position of stars, planets and other heavenly bodies on that specified time in past or future. What a mind boggling feature!
Gallery:
This displays Sky Map Hubble Gallery. You can see the beautiful pictures of Nebula, Galaxies and Planets in this gallery. You can select the pictures from this gallery to search that celestial body in Google Sky Map.
Settings:
Apart from other settings this allows you to select which of the celestial bodies you want to see on map and which you want to hide.
Search:
As it suggest this allows you to search a celestial body with its name. You can search any planet say Jupiter by typing it in search box and tapping search button. This initiates a search mode and shows a direction on map in which you should move your phone to locate the Jupiter. Once the Jupiter is found it is marked by a circle and cross hair. You can come out of search mode by clicking the cross mark displayed at one of the corner of the screen.
I am sure this app would help you to learn about stars, planets and their locations in the sky. You can see some interesting screenshots of this app at http://bestappsforandroid.blogspot.com/2011/03/ten-best-apps-for-android-app-6-google.html .
You can download Sky Map app from Android Market and start getting familiar with our neighboring stars and planets. To find more of such best apps for Android and read about them, visit: http://bestappsforandroid.blogspot.com/
