T-Care!

Free Download Google Sky Map


Google Sky Map turns your Android-powered mobile phone into a window on the night sky. Point your phone and you will see a map of the brightest stars, constellations, and planets in that part of the sky.

Anyone with a mobile phone running Google's Android operating system should never be in the dark again about what they're looking at in the sky. A new program called Sky Map uses not only GPS signals to tell users what stars and planets are visible in the sky at their location, but actually shows what celestial objects the phone is pointed at.

Sky Map uses the phone's magnetometer as a compass and its accelerometer as a plumb line to determine which way is down. That tells you which way the phone is pointed, and GPS signals and the phone's clock tell you what's in the sky at that time - a setup used by some existing handheld devices.

Sky Map uses layers similar to those of Google Earth. Tap the screen to bring up the layers and other on-screen controls. A menu to the left displays the layers for stars, constellations, Messier objects, planets, grid lines, and the horizon line, and you can toggle any or all of them on or off. There are also zoom controls and an option to switch between automatic and manual navigation modes. Auto navigation (the app's default mode) works with your phone's sensors to show you a map of the sky based on the angle and direction at which you're holding your phone. In manual mode, you scroll through the map of the sky from your location using your finger on the touch screen.

To find a specific star or constellation type its name into Sky Map's search bar and a circle with an arrow pointing toward your desired target appears on the screen. The search bar comes preloaded with the planets you can look for by picking them from the drop-down list. As you point your phone in the direction of the arrow, the circle plays a game of hot-and-cold. The closer you move your phone toward the target, the redder the circle gets, and the farther you move away from it, the bluer it gets. Once you've zeroed in on the target, the circle turns orange and you see yellow crosshairs over your target.

It sounds straightforward enough, but aiming the phone correctly isn't easy. The arrow sometimes acts wonky and flips and turns seemingly at random. Often I ended up relying more on the changes in the color of the circle than on the arrow to locate objects. This works, but it can be tricky. The app also seems to perform differently in different locations, depending maybe on the strength of the GPS signal. At PCMag.com's offices, I had a hard time navigating the map and finding the targets I searched for. But Sky Map worked fine in other areas of Manhattan and around my apartment in Brooklyn.

While everything above the horizon line (if you have that layer turned on) that's shown on your touch screen should, ideally, be visible in the actual sky, light pollution, buildings, landscape, and clouds may block your view of what's mapped on your G1. If you run into problems with the app, or your sky map seems inaccurate, the About section, which you can get to from the menu options, provides a few troubleshooting tips to get you on track. For instance, to calibrate your compass, the directions recommend holding the phone and rotating your wrist in a figure-eight pattern.

Sky Map is no Google Earth. It doesn't yet have nearly the same great wealth of features and information. Also, navigating the sky with your phone can be a challenge, and requires some getting used to. Even so, this is a very cool app, one that can turn anyone with a little bit of heavenly curiosity into a budding astronomer in no time.

Free Download Google Sky Map [Android Phone / Windows Mobile Phone / Pocket PC]

Note:
(you should open the link from your phone>)
To download this program direct to your android phone, scan this QR code link with Barcode Scanner application from Android Market

Download Google Sky Map
or
Mobile friendly download