A peek at the universe

Mercury and Venus in Libra, at home

I have written several posts for this blog but they are all still in Draft mode. Mostly stuff that on second thought I don't want to post; one thing to write it, another to publish it. I'm doing a lot of that these days, not a happy time.

However, here's something I think is quite delightful. A friend showed me an app he had on his tablet called Skyview Lite. The full version costs but the Lite version is free. You let the app access your location and then it shows you where all the stars and planets and galaxies are, right now. You can take your device outside and point it at something in the sky and it tells you its name. Or, if you want to know (say for example) where Saturn is, the app will point you to its location even if it is below the horizon. It works on a tablet or a smart phone. If you turn on your cell or tablet camera in the app, you see the night sky superimposed on whatever your camera 'sees'. So sitting in my living room with the tablet camera pointed at a wall, I glimpse a small portion of the universe inside my house. In this case the planets Mercury and Venus which are invisible in the daytime. 

Last night I located several constellations and the planet Mars, which currently is the only planet above the horizon after dark. Saturn and Jupiter are conjunct on the other side of the Earth at night so you can't see them in the sky here and now, but you can 'see' them in the app when you point the camera below the horizon. I knew that the Pleiades were in the constellation Taurus, but for the first time I was able to locate both Taurus and the Pleiades in the night sky. This morning I watched the International Space Station slowly moving across the 'sky' just below the horizon; when I first located the ISS on the app it was just passing by Jupiter and Saturn.

If you are willing to pay for it, the full version will show you many more stars, constellations and other sky objects. I must admit I am strongly tempted.