Sky Map, open source alternative to Google Sky

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Let's go back to talking about applications for observing the sky! After telling you about Planisphere (an application to recognize the constellations) e Suntimes (an application to get various information including the phases of the moon, the equinoxes, the times of sunrise and sunset) the time has come to let you also know Sky Map!

As you can easily guess from the name, it is a real map of the sky and in our opinion it can be considered an alternative to Google Sky. Indeed, if we want to be honest and read their website: “a team of engineers from Google's Pittsburgh office launched Google Sky Map in 2009. In 2012 we opened sourcing and it ceased to be developed by Google. It is currently developed by the same engineers, but on a voluntary basis and not on behalf of Google“.

The application is very well made and is equally simple to use. By also giving permission to obtain your position, you can bet Sky Map towards the sky and discover what the sky looks like at that precise moment above your head.

Sky Map, alternative to Google Sky

This option is not mandatory, obviously it is possible to disable it and observe the sky by manually moving the observation point.

With a click on the legend on the left it is also possible to enable or disable the visual presence of constellations, stars, planets, galaxies and so on. This way you can only view what really interests you and not be disturbed by other writings

Among the various settings that we can find, one that we particularly liked is called "Time travel". In fact, it allows you to enter any date, in the past but also in the future, to know what the sky was like in a given year or what it will be like in the near or distant future. Among the popular and preset dates we find, for example, theApollo 11 moon landing!

Also in the settings we find an image gallery with photos of Hubble to be able to see planets or galaxies: by clicking on “Find in the sky” we can also identify them in the sky above us.

We liked the application a lot and in our opinion it is useful even just to be used out of curiosity on a night with a beautiful starry sky.

Unfortunately Sky Map it is updated very little, especially recently, however it still works well and let's just hope it doesn't get abandoned completely.

Download the app

And on desktop?

In addition to what is already known Celestia we also offer you, on your suggestion, the use of the project Open source ¹ Stellarium Astronomy Software. It is available for Linux, Windows and also macOS.

1. Stellarium on GitHub[↩]

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