Starmap PRO

Starmap is particularly useful for planning you observation session. Touch the Tonight icon in the main menu to reach the list of the objects that can be best observed during the next night. The objects are displayed there with their visibility bar, from rise to set time.

An object is considered as “best” when its trajectory reaches at least 15° in altitude between the astronomical dusk and dawn.

The objects are ordered by kind. Use the Filters to define which kind of objects should be listed. Select your observation mean. Starmap will automatically restrain the list given their magnitude (luminosity). The maximum magnitude is 10. Beyond, the list would be much too crowded and unreadable.
You can also filter out circumpolar objects, meaning objects that are always visible for your latitude and that will always be in the list. You can order the list by magnitude, from the brightest to the faintest object, or by rise times.

Once you’ve decided to observe an object, for instance the Andromeda galaxy, touch its visibility bar to access the details panel. There, press the “Featured” icon to add it in your favorite objects list. From then on, the Andromeda galaxy will be quickly accessible to you, without searching all the catalogs. Swiping your finger over an object name in the list will erase it. Note that all recently consulted or searched objects will be automatically added to the “Recent” section.

Using alarms is also a nice way of planning your observation sessions. Go to the detailed information panel of an object, touch the Alarm icon, and set the alarm time relative to its rise, transit or set time (see the Alarms section for more details).

IMPORTANT: like all iPhone applications, Starmap cannot run in background and alarms will be suspended if you leave or temporarily put it to sleep (sleep mode can be disabled from the Navigation settings). Alarms will be active again when launching Starmap or waking up the device. Alarms overdue for more than 12 hours are ignored.