Pocket Stars is an integrated, real-time star finder, ephemeris, and celestial navigation tool for the Pocket PC. To get a quick understanding of the capabilities of Pocket Stars, click here to watch a movie.
Pocket Stars is a portable guide to the heavens for casual stargazers, astronomers, and celestial navigators alike.
Star Chart Features
- Simple and fast star, planet, and Messier object identification. Single click on any body to get the name, designation, calculated altitude, azimuth, and magnitude. Drag the cursor to scroll the chart. Zoom in and out with a single click.
- Display of constellations and body names are controlled by a single click. Manual or automatic control of star magnitudes. Overall, these features give great control of visual clutter given the limited screen real estate on the Pocket PC.
- Black, white, and red star chart colors for normal, bright, and night viewing conditions, respectively.
- Chart can be rotated to any of the 16 compass points.
- User location set by clicking on map, city selection, or by entering Latitude and Longitude.
- Chart can be "live, realtime", or static for any user selected time.
- Core positional calculation routines based on "Novas" (Naval Observatory Vector Astrometry Subroutines Version 2.0.1) from the US Naval Observatory.
- Star data is from the Bright Star Catalog (5th Revised Edition), comprising the 9110 brightest stars using J2000 equatorial positions and the International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF). Corrections are performed for proper motions and parallax.
- Planet ephemeris data from Jet Propulsion Laboratory using the DE405 database. DE405 is JPL's latest planetary ephemeris with correction for both nutations and librations. DE405 uses the J2000 International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF). The portion of this database provided with Pocket Stars covers the years CE 2000 to CE 2020. Other ephemeris date ranges are available for download.
Celestial Navigation Features
- Reduction from sextant altitude to observed altitude for any of the 9110 stars, nine planets, and sun and moon.
- Corrections for observer height (DIP), refraction (temperature and atmospheric pressure), and vessel movement.
- Position from intercept and azimuth by calculation for multiple sextant observations following procedures in The Nautical Almanac by the United States Naval Observatory.
- Any number of sextant observations can be individually enabled to compute a best fit when computing a FIX. Results may be plotted, showing the assumed position (AP), FIX, and observations with intercepts and amplitudes.
