I got my first iphone yesterday and am playing catch-up. Please laugh at me. In the meantime, let’s compile a list of the best smartphone applications for astronomers, shall we?
The AstroBetter Wiki has a stubby page on iphone apps for astronomers. What’s missing? Obviously astro-ph tools and APOD are missing — what else?
Also, the wiki has no apps yet for other brands of smartphones. (I’m trying to be less applecentric.) What are the killer Android/Crackberry/Yota apps?
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There is a “astro-ph” App. It’s called ArXiv.
I also like “Star Walk” and “Papers” (because I have it on my Mac, as well)
I’d say “Star Walk” is a must-have. I also particularly like “Exoplanet”, constantly updated, with some very nice features.
APOD: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/apod/id382515169?mt=8
Stellarium (two versions): http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/stellarium/id382624365?mt=8
arXiv: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/arxiv/id302515757?mt=8
Mendeley: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mendeley-reference-manager/id380669300?mt=8
Planets: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/planets/id305793334?mt=8
I use a Droid rather than an iphone. Other than arXiv droid (https://market.android.com/details?id=com.commonsware.android.arXiv&feature=search_result) I also wanted to point out that I recently created an astrophysics app for Droid that converts between the a galaxy’s virial mass, stellar mas, and gas mass as a function of redshift, using various abundance matching models and observed galaxy gas fractions as estimators.
The app, GalMass, can be found at https://market.android.com/details?id=appinventor.ai_StewartKR.GalMass&feature=search_result
GravLens and CosmoCalc
Exoplanets: great way to fast reference the phone numbers
Kepler: same author, but doesn’t update as much because he spends a lot of time on the other app
Star-Walk is great and has many pretty features
Planets (it’s free): although it specializes in the planets’ rising and setting times, it has a great “Sky 2D” feature for “what’s in the sky right now”. As well, there is “Sky 3D” option that works a lot like Star-Walk and Stellarium, but with less goodies.
I also use arXiv, but it only displays today’s releases: there’s no “archive” on the arXiv app.
There’s also “NASA Now”, Wolfram and Wikipedia apps, which are useful.
I have purchased almost every app that the iphone has to offer about astronomy. In my opinion pocketuniverse is the best follwed up with something a little more simple called Nightsky. Pocketuniverse offers features I have yet to see on any other app. It helps you locate planets, the sun, the moon, asteroids/comets, birghtest stars, constellations, messier, and caldwell. When you target any object in the sky it tells you what it is, shows pictures, and offers a wiki link for more information
I forgot to mention that everyone seems to mention Starwalk as the best app. If you are only looking for planets and stars and dont have a telescope then Starwalk is the best way to go. BUTTTT… if you are a more serious astronomer and want a good app that can help you locate DSO (deep space objects) than Pocketuniverse is the way to go.
Starmap Pro and Sky Safari are much better designed and much richer in terms of star and deep sky databases than any app mentioned here. Anyone interested in stargazing and amateur astronomy really should look into them.