I’ve had a couple of people excitedly show me the Star Walk astronomy app on their iPhones and ipads, and it really is great. You can hold your device up to the sky and it will show you a sky map of your exact position. Move your device around the sky, and it moves with you. It is a very high quality, dynamic and realistic stargazing guide, which — if you are a beginning or experienced astronomer — makes skywatching easy for everybody! There is also a “Solar Walk” app — which has very cool 3D images, so grab your 3D glasses to fully enjoy. See more about this app below.
With Solar Walk, you can find out more about the solar system, play around with them determining the speed of their rotation, etc, as well as learn about the moons of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars and Uranus.
Now comes the good news for anyone who reads this article all the way through! Universe Today has 3 free Star Walk and 3 free Solar Walk apps to give away.
Leave a comment on which app you would like to have, and why. I’ll pick the best answers and the top three for each app will win. You have to register to leave a comment, and make sure you register with your actual email address, as that is how we’ll contact the winners. Deadline for this contest is Thursday, September 9, 2010 at 12 noon CDT in the US, and the contest is open to anyone, anywhere in the world. Each winner can only win one app.
I’d like to have the Solar Walk app because these tools are priceless in teaching the way things look on the sky to people deep in a city. The light pollution in toronto makes it very difficult to show what a constellation looks like, or where a globular cluster is on the sky. With this app I could simply pull my phone out and hold it up to the sky and show them exactly where the object is, and what stars we can and cannot see. Particularly useful on public viewing nights!
I already enjoy Sky Walk nearly every day and would love to complete my collection of these wonderful apps with solar walk 🙂
I have Star Walk on my iPod Touch. Very nice software! I don’t need two of them, and the fact that I live in Seattle, Solar Walk would be really nice since I haven’t seen enough sun this summer! Good excuse?
Tom
I’ve not used Sky or Solar walk. But for anyone with an android device I recommend Google Sky, it seems to have very similar functionality. If anyone has used both please comment.
I’d like to have the Star Walk app. I have been interested in astronomy since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. I have been trying to introduce my wife to it as well and I think the Star Walk app would be a great way to help demonstrate what I am trying to show her.
Over Labor Day weekend, I was at an outdoor picnic that extended after nightfall and blew people away by pulling out my iPad with the the “Star Walk” app on it.
I’d love to have a copy of “Star Walk”. With my kids’ noses constantly glued to their iPod touches, this would be a great way to get them outside with their noses (and iPods) pointed UP.
I am one of 3 or 4 centre members who are active with astronomy promotion here in Thunder Bay. This has kept me busy over the summer with park visits, and GA travel etc. I am very tech saavy, and the starwalk program would allow me to show the next generation of amateur astronomers something that is pretty ‘cool’ as they now say, while trying to show them where things are in the sky. It also might save me from knocking out a pilot inadvertantly with my green laser – if I can show them on the screen, then there is no need for a pointer! 🙂 Just kidding – I make sure I look first…besides, half the year it is too cold for those darn pointers to work anyhow!!
Both apps sound great. I am, and have been for some time, on the verge of buying my first telescope. Maybe a app that eases me into what’s out there to see will do the trick…finally. 🙂
I am a portuguese teacher, in Bragança, Portugal. I teach Astronomy/Nature for 13/14 years old pupils. I think “Solar Walk” app very usefull and my school hasn’t much money for this tecnology. Thank you. Aura Aguiar
I’d like to win Solar Walk so I can show chicks how cool the solar system is without having to drag my scopes out.
I’d like to win Star Walk, to show my kids how fun and exciting science really is. I’d like to show them that their iPhones CAN be used for more than just texting, talking, and playing video games. Get them outside, looking up, and asking questions!
I’d love to have SolarWalk… I have StarWalk and it’s my favourite iPhone app, especially when I look at the sky and have no clue whats stars and planets I’m looking at. Plus I’m a third year astronomy major, so I feel like I really should know these things.
I have two daughters, and the oldest one is 8 and has a mild form of autism. Her interests are mercurial and she prefers a sedentary lifestyle, but she is highly intelligent. From the age of 3, just after she learned to talk she has taken a tremendous interest in the solar system. One of my fondest memories is painting a scale mobile with her and hanging it on her ceiling. Before she was 4 she had already memorized all of the planets names in order and is able to recognize them by sight. She has gone on to take an interest in the planet’s moons and as of last year she watched a special on the big bang with fascination and curiosity. I got her the exoplanet app. for our ipad which she has taken an avid interest in. I am quite sure she would be thrilled to add either the solar walk or star walk app. to it. I believe it would be great to further her interests in a productive field of science which I also appreciate and enjoy. Perhaps even our little daughter will be drawn into it as well, as she has a tremendous aptitude with the ipad. We also have an iphone.
I’d love to win the Star Walk app! The reason? well, i’m a physics student who chose to major in physics because of astronomy! The universe is the reason why I started to get involved in science. The idea of such beauty outside this planet, over my head, was inspiring. All I wanted to do was to get all the knowledge I could get in order to understand a little bit better the universe. Right now I still feel that passion runnng through my veins. Every time I stare at the night sky, every time I read a new article in Universe Today, every day I talk to my friends about what I’ve read, I feel this passion filling my mind. However, right now I’m deciding about what I’d like to master in, and I’m choosing between astrophysics and medical physics. So, the thing is… I’m trying to find “points” in order to choose astrophysics over medical physics and with Star Walk App I can picture myself in winter nights gazing the night sky and remembering myself why I fell in love with the Universe and its mysteries so many years ago.
I’d like to win the Star Walk app so that I can enjoy myself a bit before the world ends in 2012. And if the world doesn’t end after all then at least I’ll know all the constellations. And that will surely help me in figuring out where I am should the Earth’s axis and all the continents have shifted after the Great Cataclysm! 🙂
I’d love to have Star Walk. I bought an ipad last month which I share with my seven and five year old! It just happens that we are venturing into the excitement of astronomy together and this would be a fantastic app to help us cement a greater knowledge of the sky not to mention making me the coolest dad on the block.
I would greatly appreciate winning a copy of Solar Walk. I already have a star map app that I use constantly for planning observing sessions as well as sharing with people at our local public nights. Solar Walk would be another great tool for getting others excited about our solar system. It could also be a lot of fun to play with on those cloudy Ohio nights. Bonus: Solar Walk would also be a great gift, and my birthday is 9/9.
Hi, those applications are just the things i always wanted to have when i go looking at the night sky with my telescope. Astronomy is my passion since i was very little. I remember at that time when i was lying on the grass with my contalation book and a head torch looking at constalations in the book and then trying to find them on the starry night sky. Now that i’m a bit older (i’m a student at the moment) i go out almost every week with my telescope if its not cloudy (in my country sky is ussualy cloudy). Most of the time also my friends come with me and we stay there for hours searching the night sky. I dont have the that auto-tracking telescope so everything i’m trying to watch i do by hand. Sometimes i also print the positions of planets or nebulas and galaxies for the night i went watching the sky so having something like this is just mindblowing. At those spots where i go to watch the night sky with my telescope i also meet people from time to time who also want to take a look through the telescope so of course i let them and i want to show them that astronomy is really interesting, educational and fun. With these app everything would be so much easier not just for myself but for the others too that i want to bring astronomy closer to them. For the applications i would prefer star walk because for now i can watch most of the planets through my telescope but that nebulas and galaxies are a bit harder to find but solar walk is also amazing application. If you will choose me i would be really gratefull.
I don’t have the iphone or ipad, but I have been debating about whether to get one or not, and if I were to win a star walk app, that would push me over the edge!
I would love Star Walk to help introduce my three year old son to the wonders of the night sky. We just ordered an Ipad so this would be perfect to use when we go camping this fall.
I would love to have solar walk. I have started teaching an astronomy class and I think my students would love to see this.
Star Walk would be wonderful. I have just started to get my kids interested with a small telescope and they love seeing the planets. We live in an area with a lot of light polution so it would be nice to give them an idea of what they could see fi they would go camping with me to a remote area and then they can see it live too. Thank you
I would love to have Starwalk at my fingertips just so I could learn more about everything I am looking at. This would also aid me in teaching others about the night sky.
Lets face it, when someone new to astronomy looks through your telescope for the first time their not all that impressed with what they see.General examples of what they say are I just see a smudge or thats it.
Being able to show them what their really looking at would help them to understand
the real beauty of the night sky.
I would like the Star Walk app as then I would have a use for an iPhone
I would love to have Starwalk since I have been looking at this app for some time. It would enhance my knowledge of how to identify what I am looking at in the night sky since I will be moving to a more sky happy experience soon. Thanks for offering this opportunity. I read Universe Today everyday
Ever since I purchased an iphone 4, I have been praying my priestly night prayers (compline) out in a darkened field behind my Ohio monastery. At times I am surrounded by fireflies and an occasional deer will pass me by. However, as I recite the Psalms of David, I sometimes think, wouldn’t it be neat if I could identify the stars I see above me and know something about their names and natures. Star walk for an iphone would be perfect. The natural world colliding with the supernatural.
Back in my country (South America), 30 years ago, I worked as a High School Math teacher, and astronomy was the way for my students to get extra points. We did not have any computers or the internet. The only resource we had was an old library with a lot of encyclopedias. The conditions I gave the students were: 15 minute presentation on the universe, or solar system, on a topic that was new to the class, and visuals were required. Research from magazines or newspapers gave them the best marks. My students worked hard and used a lot of creativity. Their presentations were exhibited in the school auditorium for a week. I enjoyed the process of exposing them to something they didn’t see in their regular curriculum, but then also learning from them. All these years later I’m still learning and I’m still fascinated with the universe. I’m in awe of how much humanity has learned about our universe in the last 30 years and at the same time the immensity of our lack of knowledge.
A few months ago I went to Virginia to visit my daughter, and her husband showed me the google sky map. What a revelation! For the first time the universe was more tangible and real. It was no longer something I could only read about in books. Instead it was now in my hand, in my backyard, and all around me. Every day I read about the universe and everyday I have something new to learn! For my 58th birthday I received, from my kids, a telescope and an android. The Star Walk or Solar Walk will be a perfect complement to these gifts. The universe will be at my reach. No more old encyclopedias!
I hope I win the Star Walk app for my husband. His birthday is coming up and I think it would be a much more exciting gift then clean underwear!
When I was a kid, I was looking every night into the stars before going to sleep. My mum laughed one evening and asked me ” Have you found your star?”. I replied” How would I know which one is mine?”, she laughed ” It is the most beautiful star in the sky and when you look at it, it will make your heart tick and warm”. That night I found one shiny star, it was the most beautiful star in the sky and I fell asleep very happy. Next evening I was looking for my star and there was another one, even more beautiful, and now fifty years afterwards I still look into the sky and every night I find my new star. And I hear my mum’s voice again” It is the most beautiful star in the sky”