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Get a Real Time Planetarium with Star Rover HD

This planetarium app uses location data to calculate the star view.

Get a Real Time Planetarium with Star Rover HD
By Rob LeFebvre
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Star Rover HD - Night Sky Map

Star Rover HD, from developer EEFan, Inc., is a real-time planetarium app for the iPad. The objects on the screen, including the moon, planets and other heavenly bodies, are in exactly the same place as they are in the night sky outside, using the user's location data to make this happen.

The planetarium app boasts over 120,000 stars from the Hipparcos Catalogue, a high-precision star catalogue published in 1997 that was based on the European Space Agency's satellite in operation during the late 1980s and early 1990s. The other features of this app include all 88 constellations, planets and their moons, our own moon phases, real images of nebulae from the Messier catalogue of 1771, and realistic Milky Way, atmosphere and sunset data.

If that's not enough for the star loving iPad owner, an online User Guide is available. Any fan of the heavens can see the utility of such an app, viewing the night sky with far greater resolution and an overlay of real-time information and data -- far better than squinting through a blurry telescope and consulting a paper book, yeah?

Rob LeFebvre
Rob LeFebvre
Dad. Mac head. Ukulele nerd. Gamer. Rob lives in Anchorage, Alaska, and commutes daily to the intarwebs to edit and write about iOS, Mac, books, and video games. He is currently employed as the editor at 148Apps, the best gosh-darn iPhone site this side of Mars, and contributes freelance to various other sites, including Cult of Mac and VentureBeat. Somehow he still finds time to play in a Disco band, raise two amazing kids, and hang on to his day job.