NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Learn the stars, by phone
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2009 May 22, 09:19 -0700
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2009 May 22, 09:19 -0700
Last week, I wrote: "For students of celestial navigation and astronomy generally, the pointing information can be used to identify stars, planets, even bright satellites. This sort of application has been available for a few years in expensive stand-alone devices which have sold well in a niche market, but as this basic astronomical data becomes widely available through "smart" mobile phones, there's a potential for significantly greater basic astronomical knowledge among the wider population. I consider this a real opportunity for celestial navigation and astronomy educators. Though most people living in urban and suburban areas have lost the night sky to so-called light pollution, there is still strong interest. In a year or two, when smart phone users of all ages, but especially young people, can point their phones at a star and say, "Oh, that's Vega... and there's Altair...", it may well be revolutionary. Maybe it will inspire some interest in traditional celestial navigation." So what sort of applications could we create to achieve this goal? Assuming that phones with pointing capabilities like this are just around the corner (a year or two), what sort of star identification software would help to "inspire" interest in celestial navigation? Of course, we would want something that identifies the standard navigational stars, and perhaps something that discusses their names (e.g. pointing out that names like "Acrux" were coined in the 1940s-50s specifically for navigators). And perhaps we could include a function that calculates the apparent altitude and the computed (true) altitude from the observer's location, maybe showing sample corrections for dip and refraction ...just to get them wondering what those are. Any other ideas?? What would you want in a star-finding educational tool aimed at a pre-celestial navigation market? -FER --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Navigation List archive: www.fer3.com/arc To post, email NavList@fer3.com To , email NavList-@fer3.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---