Hidden Sky app for iPhone and iPad

4.8 ( 238 ratings )

Utilities Education
Developer: Code Organa

4.99 USD

Current version: 1.0.8, last update: 7 years ago
First release : 19 Apr 2010
App size: 1.78 Mb

See a video of Hidden Sky:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSmO0eEaIKI

Selected by Apple for iTunes Rewind Hot Trends In Apps.

Hundreds of satellites orbit the Earth. Ever wonder where they are? The ISS? The GPS constellation? How about the planets? Need to know where a particular satellite is in the sky to find a clear line of sight for your dish? Mostly invisible to our naked eye, these objects are made visible with this augmented reality app.

Just select the objects youd like to see from a catalog that includes over a thousand satellites, all of the planets, the Sun, and the Moon. Then simply point the iPhone camera towards the sky. The objects and their orbit tracks are shown over the iPhone camera display in the direction that they actually are from your location.

Interested in one specific object? Select it from your bookmarks, and a 3D arrow will direct you to its place in the sky. Additionally, plenty of information is available for that object: its latitude, longitude, altitude, azimuth, elevation, skew, and range. If it is visible from your location soon, its rise and set times are also available.

What if youd like to know where an object might be at some other time, not now? Interested in seeing the path of the Sun over the next few hours? Animate the sky using a slider to move time smoothly forward or backward. Or, use the date picker to jump to a specific date and time.

Features:

* View satellites, the planets, the Sun, and the Moon and their orbit tracks in augmented reality over the iPhone camera display, or on a 2D map.
* Learn about the objects you are observing with information from the NSSDC catalog and other sources.
* Choose from a catalog of over 1000 satellites which can be updated on demand from www.celestrak.com.
* Search the catalog by object name, NSSDC ID, or NORAD catalog number.
* Use a 3D arrow to easily locate any object in the sky.
* See the latitude, longitude, altitude, azimuth, elevation, skew, range, rise and set times of any object.
* See your location and the iPhone cameras pointing azimuth and elevation.
* Display the Clarke Belt and the horizon.
* Bookmark objects that are saved from run to run.
* Watch objects move across the sky in real time.
* Smoothly animate the objects forward or backwards in time using a slider.
* Jump to a specific date and time.

Because Hidden Sky uses the compass, staying clear of magnetic interference will improve the pointing accuracy. You can also recalibrate Hidden Sky for the best pointing accuracy by moving your device in a figure-8 pattern. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP3d00Hr14o for an example.

Find out more information about Hidden Sky and our other apps at www.codeorgana.com. You can also follow us on Twitter @codeorgana.

Pros and cons of Hidden Sky app for iPhone and iPad

Hidden Sky app good for

This application has it all! I have been fascinated with astronomy, satellites, and our planets my entire life. I have always laid upon my back wondering what those shimmering objects were in our infinite sky. With Hidden Sky I no longer have an unanswered question. This Application is beyond simple to use and extremely informative and fun. To be able to utilize my viewfinder to obtain the location and description of satellites and planets has blown my mind. I have faith that Code Organa will be coming out with some amazing products, although it will be difficult to top Hidden Sky. Well worth the 5 bucks. Thank you for the app!

Left a note at the support section of the web page explaining the map problem, and got an email in a few hours with a discussion of it and a suggested solution - reboot the darned iPhone. Whoda thunk it? Well, I should have... The app now works as advertised. Five stars for sure. And kudos to Mike at Codeorgana for a quick response and good service. Well done.

Its been about 1.5 months since my initial review with several updates to the app; in that time period, I have used this application a good amount of times - and entirely for leisure. As I mentioned in my previous review, the camera option is a great function to the app; allows one to point the phone towards the sky to determine the exact location of any object in its respective orbit. Definitely worth a purchase if you are interested in astronomy or space in general.

this is a very good start! Would be awesome if it told you which planets are viewable by the naked eye at a certain time..and add space station location! I hope you guys add more, this is too cool.

This app is so neat . I know that sounds cheesy , but Im serious. Its cool enough to justify the purchase and the features are awesome. Ive only had this app for an hour and thus far, its great!!

This app is pretty badass even if you arent a astronomy nerd. It works just as advertised. No hiccups of lameass lazy production. It has a wow factor thats pretty cool to show what this phone is capable of too. It has gotten me more interested in astronomy so maybe it is for astronomy nerds that need to be exposed! You can even use it with the camera off and it still works fine with less battery consumption! Good job, cause Im sure it took a lot of math to make an app like this.

Some bad moments

Works great on ios 5 and below, but doesnt display correctly on iOS beta 6 as of 7-3-12.

Looks good but with my iPhone It just was not accurate enough. After wasting time trying to aim the dish for the dtv satellite, I gave up and used the compass on my tripod, aimed due south and had a signal in a minute.

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