Sky & Telescope magazine is releasing a new, free application for all Android mobile devices: S&T SkyWeek. The previously-released Apple version of the app will also now be free to download.

"We thought it would be the perfect way to celebrate Sky & Telescope’s 70th anniversary year — to make the app available to all astronomy enthusiasts for free," says Joel Toner, V.P. for Publishing of New Track Media, S&T's parent company.

The splash screen for S&T SkyWeek for Android.

Jessica Kloss

The app is based on the S&T website's popular This Week's Sky at a Glance bulletin, which presents editors' picks of the most exciting things to observe each night, from planetary conjunctions to eclipses to meteor showers. "But it goes beyond that," says S&T editor in chief Robert Naeye. "It gives the user a day-by-day report on the week’s most exciting sky events with a link to an interactive sky chart that tells you when and where to look to see the event."

"We designed the app to be extremely user friendly," says Tim DeBenedictis, whose firm, Southern Stars, developed the app in partnership with Sky & Telescope. It allows users to zoom in and out on the skymap, set a location, pan around your local sky, and go to different times and dates. With a "night mode" option, the app is ideally set up to be an on-site observing tool for astronomy enthusiasts. The app works on Android phones running Android version 2.1 or higher, which includes 95% of Android phones.

To download the Android version of S&T SkyWeek, go to Market on the Droid menu screen and search for SkyWeek.

Comments


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RapidEye

April 20, 2011 at 10:25 am

Woohoo - about time us Android folks got some S&T love too! =-)

Thanks!!!

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James Grose

April 20, 2011 at 4:10 pm

I agree, about time this app ia available to us Android users. I will be using this app quite frequently for planning observing sessions, and it will save me from lugging my star atlas and flashlight to read said atlas at my scope, when it will be easier using the interactive star chart within the app instead.

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James Grose

April 20, 2011 at 9:12 pm

I have tried the app on my LG Ally droid phone, and it is a great app, but there is one annoying problem, if I shut my phone off, and then switch it back on, and try the app again, it no longer works. I think the app loses critical files, and/or becomes corrupted. This problem needs to be addressed ASAP if you want my continued support. I thought Sky & Tel was better than this, apparently not. For anyone else who chooses to get this app, DO NOT waste your time it is more trouble than it is worth. Maybe someday if Sky & Tel gets their act together concerning this app, I may try it again, until then, no dice.

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jim

April 22, 2011 at 8:07 am

not work on android 2.1 Samsung i5500

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Jerry

May 8, 2011 at 7:18 am

cant find in market....is it no longer

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Patrick

September 11, 2012 at 12:00 am

I really think S&T should reconsider their lack of an android app. I really wonder about their marketing when it did exist. Apparently it existed at one time, but the first I heard of it is when they offered the updated apple version and found they had nothing for me.

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kmcic

October 25, 2012 at 2:16 am

Cant find it
Go to Market?
Go to droid?

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Bob Nelson

July 19, 2013 at 8:46 pm

Where on earth is 'market'? And 'droid'? What some practical directions? Um ..., not to be offensive or anything, but your directions were way too casual. (It reminded me of the Software Bisque manuals.) A link would be normally expected.

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