SkyMap for Windows 8

SkyMap application (based on SkyMap Windows Phone code) has just been released on Windows 8 and Windows RT platforms. There are 2 versions of this app: SkyMap Free (free, ad-based) SkyMap(free trial or $1.99 for full functionality) Be ready for Dec 21st (end of Mayan calendar) and use this app to check if planets align…

Curiosity Landed on Mars!

A few minutes ago, Curiosity landed on Mars! This is a great step forward for planetary exploration and for the whole mankind. $2.5 billion, a lot of human work and dreams spent on this project only to end up with success. I really belive that humans should keep their own “curiosity” and continue “boldly go…

Pale Blue Dot

I stumbled upon the reflections about Earth and us by Carl Sagan in his Pale Blue Dot book. There are so well said, that I really felt that I have to mention them here. “That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives….

Meade LS Telescope Review

I got the chance to use for a few nights a 6 inch Meade LS telescope. So far, I can say I’m pretty impressed. Of course, this telescope is one of the most technological advanced telescope produces so far. It has GPS, compass, lights switch, a lot of media content, etc. I think it’s a…

SkyMap 2 for Windows Phone

We released version 2 of SkyMap for Windows Phone. There are a lot of changes in the new version. The application has a  completely new map rendering. It uses XNA, taking advantage of the phone’s GPU. All drawings are performed frame by frame, in real time. Another big difference is the way the application calculates…

SkyMap for Windows Phone 7.5 Gets Full Point to Sky Experience

SkyMap application for Windows Phone was recently updated to version 1.5.  What is SkyMap for Windows Phone 7? SkyMap provides interactive sky maps for any time, viewpoint and location on Earth. It shows the different names, coordinates, magnitude, astronomical rise and set times plus additional information for over 110000 stars, messier objects, planets, sun and…

AstroPix 1.0 Presentation Video

As I said in my previous blog entry, we’ve recently released 2 windows phone applications including AstroPix. It looks like AstroPix is quite succesful and we’ve decided to create a presentatio video for it. Without further ado, here’s the video. I really hope that windows phone owners will find these applications (AstroPix + SkyMap) useful:

2 free apps for windows phone: AstroPix and SkyMap Free

We’ve recently published these 2 new free apps for Windows Phone 7. I hope people will find them usefull during summer time. SkyMap Free works fine offline – so if you’re camping, away from light polution, but with no phone/data coverage, you can still use SkyMap Free. AstroPix is a NASA’s APOD viewer. It’s a…

SkyMap for Windows Phone v1.2

A new update of SkyMap (version 1.2) is available for download from marketplace (for windows phone users). Please take a look at our presentation video (below) for a preview of the new features in version 1.2: – astronomy picture of the day – map rotation mode – point to sky mode (beta) – flashlight, map orientation lock and other…

SkyMap for Windows Phone 7

This was an interesting project and a lot of exprience to gain out of it. The idea was old. And I already have the code to draw sky maps from my own website skymaponline.net. But it was not as easy as I thought it will be. Because the progamming on Windows Phone 7 is… an…

astrophotography – Orion mount, guided (october)

Still good weather in Seattle for the first weeks of October… And finally I got an adapter to mount a second scope (a 80 mm Meade DS2080 OTA) to the mount (near my main OTA – Celestron 6SE).. This configuration allows me to get guided shots. Basically, I use a Meade DSI II Pro to…

astrophotography – Orion Sirius mount, unguided (september)

We had good weather in September – way better than what we had in June (pretty unexpected, isn’t it?). Sep 21st is gone and now the night time is longer than day time. Although I actually prefer summer  opposed to winter, at least I get the option to observe the heavens earlier. During the last…