Offers in-app purchases
Many subtle improvements have elevated this atlas to must-have status. Tirion is the practical star-atlas master. Unqualified highest rating: a full five out of five.
Used by over 30 million people world-wide, Star Chart provides a magical star gazing experience like no other.
You can now have a virtual planetarium in your pocket! Look through the eyes of your Android device to see a virtual window into the whole visible universe.
All you have to do is point your Android deviceº at the sky and Star Chart will tell you exactly what you are looking at.
Using state of the art GPS technology, an accurate 3D universe, and all of the latest high tech functionality, Star Chart calculates – in real time - the current location of every star and planet visible from Earth and shows you precisely where they are; even in broad daylight!
Want to know what that bright star is called? Point your device at it – you might just find out it’s a planet!
Want to know what the night sky looks like to people on the other side of the earth? Well just point your device down!
Want to know where your star sign is in the sky? Star Chart will tell you all this and more.
Star Chart's features include:
- Just point and view. No need to scroll around the screen to find out what you are looking at*.
- Alternatively, look around the sky using finger gestures – perfect for armchair astronomers!
- Voice Control: Explore the solar system with commands like: 'Fly me to the Moon' / 'Go to Saturn' / 'Tour Mars' / 'Look at Andromeda' / 'Where is the Cigar Galaxy?'[English only]
- Supports dynamic device orientation viewing. Allows you to view the night sky whilst holding your Android device at any angle.
- Accurately depicts all the visible stars of the northern and southern hemispheres - a total of over 120,000 stars!
- Fly to and explore all the planets of the solar system, their moons and the sun all rendered in beautiful 3D with state of the art visual effects.
- Displays all 88 constellations, with constellation imagery based on the beautiful artwork by 17th century astronomer Johannes Hevelius.
- Includes entire Messier catalogue of exotic deep sky objects.
- Using the powerful Time Shift feature allows you to shift up to 10,000 years forward or backward in time.
- Tap on anything in the sky and get the facts on what you are looking at, including distance and brightness.
- Very powerful zoom function, lets you view the sky in extra detail, using intuitive finger gestures.
- Fully configurable. Star Chart displays only the sky objects that you are interested in.
- Allows you to view the sky underneath the horizon. So now you can see where the sun is, even at night!
- Manually set your location to find out what the sky looks like from anywhere in the world.
- Full search feature
So point your Android device at the sky and see what's out there!
------------
Star Chart is published by Escape Velocity Ltd and developed by Escapist Games Ltd. We update Star Chart regularly, so please send us your feedback and feature requests to [email protected].
And thanks for all your feedback so far!
Like us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/starchart
Follow Star Chart on Twitter: StarChartApp
º Augmented Reality (AR) mode only available if your device supports it, as this feature requires a built-in compass. Manual scrolling is supported on all other devices.
* Star Chart does not require internet access for normal usage. Internet access is only required initially to verify the license and subsequently when accessing the support page and external links.
You can now have a virtual planetarium in your pocket! Look through the eyes of your Android device to see a virtual window into the whole visible universe.
All you have to do is point your Android deviceº at the sky and Star Chart will tell you exactly what you are looking at.
Using state of the art GPS technology, an accurate 3D universe, and all of the latest high tech functionality, Star Chart calculates – in real time - the current location of every star and planet visible from Earth and shows you precisely where they are; even in broad daylight!
Want to know what that bright star is called? Point your device at it – you might just find out it’s a planet!
Want to know what the night sky looks like to people on the other side of the earth? Well just point your device down!
Want to know where your star sign is in the sky? Star Chart will tell you all this and more.
Star Chart's features include:
- Just point and view. No need to scroll around the screen to find out what you are looking at*.
- Alternatively, look around the sky using finger gestures – perfect for armchair astronomers!
- Voice Control: Explore the solar system with commands like: 'Fly me to the Moon' / 'Go to Saturn' / 'Tour Mars' / 'Look at Andromeda' / 'Where is the Cigar Galaxy?'[English only]
- Supports dynamic device orientation viewing. Allows you to view the night sky whilst holding your Android device at any angle.
- Accurately depicts all the visible stars of the northern and southern hemispheres - a total of over 120,000 stars!
- Fly to and explore all the planets of the solar system, their moons and the sun all rendered in beautiful 3D with state of the art visual effects.
- Displays all 88 constellations, with constellation imagery based on the beautiful artwork by 17th century astronomer Johannes Hevelius.
- Includes entire Messier catalogue of exotic deep sky objects.
- Using the powerful Time Shift feature allows you to shift up to 10,000 years forward or backward in time.
- Tap on anything in the sky and get the facts on what you are looking at, including distance and brightness.
- Very powerful zoom function, lets you view the sky in extra detail, using intuitive finger gestures.
- Fully configurable. Star Chart displays only the sky objects that you are interested in.
- Allows you to view the sky underneath the horizon. So now you can see where the sun is, even at night!
- Manually set your location to find out what the sky looks like from anywhere in the world.
- Full search feature
So point your Android device at the sky and see what's out there!
------------
Star Chart is published by Escape Velocity Ltd and developed by Escapist Games Ltd. We update Star Chart regularly, so please send us your feedback and feature requests to [email protected].
And thanks for all your feedback so far!
Like us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/starchart
Follow Star Chart on Twitter: StarChartApp
º Augmented Reality (AR) mode only available if your device supports it, as this feature requires a built-in compass. Manual scrolling is supported on all other devices.
* Star Chart does not require internet access for normal usage. Internet access is only required initially to verify the license and subsequently when accessing the support page and external links.
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Celestial cartography,[1]uranography,[2][3]astrography or star cartography[citation needed] is the fringe of astronomy and branch of cartography concerned with mapping stars, galaxies, and other astronomical objects on the celestial sphere. Measuring the position and light of charted objects requires a variety of instruments and techniques. These techniques have developed from angle measurements with quadrants and the unaided eye, through sextants combined with lenses for light magnification, up to current methods which include computer-automated space telescopes. Uranographers have historically produced planetary position tables, star tables, and star maps for use by both amateur and professional astronomers. More recently computerized star maps have been compiled, and automated positioning of telescopes is accomplished using databases of stars and other astronomical objects.
- 3Star catalogues
- 4Star atlases
Etymology[edit]
The word 'uranography' derived from the Greek 'ουρανογραφια' (Koine Greekουρανος 'sky, heaven' + γραφειν 'to write') through the Latin'uranographia'. In Renaissance times, Uranographia was used as the book title of various celestial atlases.[4][5][6] During the 19th century, 'uranography' was defined as the 'description of the heavens'. Elijah H. Burritt re-defined it as the 'geography of the heavens'.[7] The German word for uranography is 'Uranographie', the French is 'uranographie' and the Italian is 'uranografia'.
Astrometry[edit]
Star catalogues[edit]
Aquarius according to Hyginus | Aquarius according to Johann Bayer's Uranometria, based on Rudolphine Tables | Aquarius according to KStars |
A determining fact source for drawing star charts is naturally a star table. This is apparent when comparing the imaginative 'star maps' of Poeticon Astronomicon – illustrations beside a narrative text from the antiquity – to the star maps of Johann Bayer, based on precise star-position measurements from the Rudolphine Tables by Tycho Brahe.
Important historical star tables[edit]
- c:AD 150, Almagest – contains the last known star table from antiquity, prepared by Ptolemy, 1,028 stars.
- c.964, Book of the Fixed Stars, Arabic version of the Almagest by al-Sufi.
- 1627, Rudolphine Tables – contains the first West Enlightenment star table, based on measurements of Tycho Brahe, 1,005 stars.
- 1690, Prodromus Astronomiae – by Johannes Hevelius for his Firmamentum Sobiescanum, 1,564 stars.
- 1729, Britannic Catalogue – by John Flamsteed for his Atlas Coelestis, position of more than 3,000 stars by accuracy of 10'.
- 1903, Bonner Durchmusterung – by Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander and collaborators, circa 460,000 stars.
Star atlases[edit]
Naked-eye[edit]
- 15th century BC – The ceiling of the tomb TT71 for the Egyptian architect and minister Senenmut, who served Queen Hatshepsut, is adorned with a large and extensive star chart.
- c:a 1 CE ?? Poeticon astronomicon, allegedly by Gaius Julius Hyginus
- 1092 – Xin Yi Xiang Fa Yao (新儀 象法要), by Su Song, a horological treatise which had the earliest existent star maps in printed form. Su Song's star maps also featured the corrected position of the pole star which had been deciphered due to the efforts of astronomical observations by Su's peer, the polymath scientist Shen Kuo.
- 1515 – First European printed star charts[8] published in Nuremberg, Germany, engraved by Albrecht Dürer.
- 1603 – Uranometria, by Johann Bayer, the first western modern star map based on Tycho Brahe's and Johannes Kepler's Tabulae Rudolphinae
- 1627, Julius Schiller published the star atlas Coelum Stellatum Christianum which replaced pagan constellations with biblical and early Christian figures.
- 1660 – Jan Janssonius' 11th volume of Atlas Maior featured the Harmonia Macrocosmica by Andreas Cellarius
- 1693 – Firmamentum Sobiescanum sive Uranometria, by Johannes Hevelius, a star map updated with many new star positions based on Hevelius'es Prodromus astronomiae (1690) – 1564 stars.
Telescopic[edit]
- 1729 Atlas Coelestis by John Flamsteed
- 1801 Uranographia by Johann Elert Bode
- 1843 Uranometria Nova by Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander
Photographic[edit]
- 1914 Franklin-Adams Charts, by John Franklin-Adams, a very early photographic atlas.
- The Falkau Atlas (Hans Vehrenberg). Stars to magnitude 13.
- Atlas Stellarum (Hans Vehrenberg). Stars to magnitude 14.
- True Visual Magnitude Photographic Star Atlas (Christos Papadopoulos). Stars to magnitude 13.5.
Modern[edit]
- Bright Star Atlas – Wil Tirion (stars to magnitude 6.5)
- Cambridge Star Atlas – Wil Tirion (Stars to magnitude 6.5)
- Norton's Star Atlas and Reference Handbook – Ed. Ian Ridpath (stars to magnitude 6.5)
- Stars & Planets Guide – Ian Ridpath and Wil Tirion (stars to magnitude 6.0)[9]
- Cambridge Double Star Atlas – James Mullaney and Wil Tirion (stars to magnitude 7.5)
- Cambridge Atlas of Herschel Objects – James Mullaney and Wil Tirion (stars to magnitude 7.5)
- Pocket Sky Atlas – Roger Sinnott (stars to magnitude 7.5)
- Deep Sky Reiseatlas – Michael Feiler, Philip Noack (Telrad Finder Charts – stars to magnitude 7.5)
- Atlas Coeli Skalnate Pleso (Atlas of the Heavens) 1950.0 – Antonín Bečvář (stars to magnitude 7.75 and about 12000 clusters, galaxies and nebulae)
- SkyAtlas 2000.0, second edition – Wil Tirion & Roger Sinnott (stars to magnitude 8.5)
- 1987, Uranometria 2000.0 Deep Sky Atlas – Wil Tirion, Barry Rappaport, Will Remaklus (stars to magnitude 9.7; 11.5 in selected close-ups)
- Herald-Bobroff AstroAtlas – David Herald & Peter Bobroff (stars to magnitude 9 in main charts, 14 in selected sections)
- Millennium Star Atlas – Roger Sinnott, Michael Perryman (stars to magnitude 11)
- Field Guide to the Stars and Planets – Jay M. Pasachoff, Wil Tirion charts (stars to magnitude 7.5)
- SkyGX (still in preparation) – Christopher Watson (stars to magnitude 12)
- The Great Atlas of the Sky – Piotr Brych (2,400,000 stars to magnitude 12, galaxies to magnitude 18).[10]
Computerized[edit]
- XEphem, for Unix-like systems
- Stellarmap.com – online map of the stars[11]
- Star Walk and Kepler Explorer OpenLab: 2 celestial cartography apps for smartphones
Free and printable from files[edit]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^Warner, D. J. (1979). The Sky Explored: Celestial Cartography 1500–1800. Amsterdam and New York: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum Ltd. and Alan R. Liss, Inc.
- ^Lovi, G.; W. Tirion; B. Rappaport (1987). 'Uranography Yesterday and Today'. Uranometria 2000.0. 1: The Northern Hemisphere to – 6 degree. Willmann-Bell, Richmond.
- ^Lovi, G.; Tirion, W. (1989). Men, Monsters and the Modern Universe. Richmond: Willmann-Bell.
- ^1690: Hevelius J., Firmamentum Sobiescianum sive Uranographia.
- ^c. 1750: Bevis J., Uranographia Britannica.
- ^1801: Bode. J. E., Uranographia sive Astrorum Descriptio.
- ^Burritt, E. H., The Geography of the Heavens, 1833.
- ^'Dürer's hemispheres of 1515 — the first European printed star charts'. Ianridpath.com. Retrieved 2019-02-25.
- ^'Stars & Planets Guide', IanRidpath.com.
- ^'The Great Atlas of the Sky', GreatSkyAtlas.com, December 1, 2009.
- ^'Stellarmap.com'. Stellarmap.com. Retrieved 2019-02-25.
External links[edit]
- Star Maps from Ian Ridpath's Star Tales website.
- Felice Stoppa's ATLAS COELESTIS, an extensive collection of 51 star maps and other astronomy related books stored as a multitude of images.
- Collection of rare star atlases, charts, and maps available in full digital facsimile at Linda Hall Library.
- Navigable online map of the stars, Stellarmap.com.
- The Digital Collections of the Linda Hall Library include:
- 'Astronomy: Star Atlases, Charts, and Maps', a collection of more than 60 star atlas volumes.
- 'Astronomy: Selected Images, a collection of high-resolution star map images.
- 'History of Cosmology: Views of the Stars', high-resolution scans of prints relating to the study of the structure of the cosmos.
- EDSM, an external community supporting the recording of exploration data in Elite: Dangerous.
- GalNet, the official community news source for Elite: Dangerous galactic activity:
- Community Goal: More Imperial Warships, interview with Adm. Patreus in regards to Federation military activity.
- Galactic News: Jaques Station Found!, article citing the discovery of the lost Jaques station
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