Live Star Chart (Planetarium)

A clear and detailed star chart with a wealth of additional functionality

Live Star Chart is an astronomy app for sophisticated star enthusiasts, hobby astronomers and star-gazers who value well-founded and precise astronomical illustrations and data.

The basic app function displays a detailed and scalable celestial map with constellations and celestial objects (limit magnitude up to 6.3) that are visible with the naked eye or smaller telescopes. The place and time of observation as well as the direction of view can be manually configured by the user or automatically with the so-called “Live mode” (i.e. GPS, real-time and compass-guided).

Detailed additional information is available for every celestial object (fixed star, deep sky object, planet, moon, sun, meteorite shower). The information of the Bright Star Catalog and the Washington Double Star Catalog is made available for fixed stars. Additionally, users can add notes and links for every object.

The powerful search function makes it possible to align the map to a specific celestial object or guide the observer – in „live mode“ – to an object in the starry sky with specific notices. Searches can be performed according to the traditional name of an object, the catalog designation or the constellation. Moreover, the app makes it easy to identify celestial objects by aligning the device to the object in “Live mode”.

The functionality of the app is complemented by a number of astronomical tools and data.

Astronomical events

• Table-format display of the most important astronomical events within a definable time period

Orbit diagram

• Scalable illustration of orbits and positions of planets, minor planets and more than 150 minor objects (asteroids, comets) in the solar system (orrery)

Moon view (orthogonal projection):

• Scalable, orthogonal, geocentric or topocentric moon projection while properly taking the libration, moon phase, position angle and parallactic angle into account

• Optional labeling of the major lunar features (maria, craters, mountains, lacus, sinus, paludes)

• Optional selenographic coordinate grid

Rise and set diagram:

• Diagram showing the visibility of the planets, the sun and the moon at a glance

Positions of the major satellites of Jupiter and Saturn:

• Diagram showing the positions of the major satellites of Jupiter and Saturn relative to the planet

• JI-JIV: Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto

• SI-SVIII: Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Dione, Rhea, Titan, Hyperion, Iapetus

Tabular data:

• Rise, culmination and set times of the planets, sun and moon

• Times and circumstances of planetary phenomena (oppositions, conjunctions, greatest elongation, stations)

• Times and circumstances of lunar phenomena (new moon, full moon, passages of the nodes, apogee and perigee)

• Times of the equinoxes and solstices

• Times and local circumstances of solar and lunar eclipses

• Times of transits, eclipses, occultations and shadow transits of the major satellites of Jupiter and Saturn

Ephemerides calculator:

• Definable time range and time step

• Heliocentric, geocentric, and topocentric positions of the sun, planets and moon in ecliptical, equatorial, and horizontal coordinates with corrections for parallax and refraction

• Heliocentric velocity of the planets

• Physical ephemerides: apparent diameter, magnitude, phase

• Geocentric and topocentric lunar libration

Morning and evening appearance of Venus and Mercury:

• Illustration of the position of Venus or Mercury with respect to the rising/setting sun over a synodic period