Apps for Free

Category(s): Reference, Education

Average User Rating: 2.0

Number of Users Rating: 30

Current Version's Average User Rating: 2.5

Current Version's Number of Users Rating: 144

Description: An astronomy application for both amateurs and professionals. "Vinmeen" is the Tamil word for "star" and directly translates to "Fish in the sky". Vinmeen Lite is the "Lite" edition of the application "Vinmeen". Check on vinmeen for the full version.

Explore 904 Stars, the Planets and the Sun...

Vinmeen is a stargazing application. It is a simple and practical application which makes stargazing an easy and simple activity for amateur astronomers or just anybody who wants to explore the night sky. You need not understand Right ascension and Declinations to use this app. It is has also got enough features to help advanced stargazers

It makes use of the iPhone's built in GPS and accelerometers to guide the user. The current location is used to calculate the current celestial positions of stars, planets and deep sky objects. The accelerometer is used to guide the user to the object's position. Turn to the correct direction displayed and just tilt the phone to overlap the red and yellow arrows, and there it is! The selected object.

Features-

Auto Location : uses the GPS in the phone to get the Latitude and Longitude of the current location. This is essential for plotting the skies.

Tracking guide : uses elevation data which is determined by detecting the phone's inclination through the built in accelerometer. Helps in easy location

Tracker : displays a compass and an elevation gauge to show the azimuth and altitude of a selected celestial object in simple layman terms. The object selection is also simplified by providing "above the horizon" and "below the horizon" groupings

Sky View : displays a 3D planetarium view of the sky dome. The application uses OpenGL ES to render the sky. Just swipe your finger on the phone and see the dome rotating! Also auto elevation option will detect the angle of the phone and show the sky automatically at that location (altitude/elevation only).
Celestial Database This application tracks 904 stars with magnitude below 4.5 and the planets and the Sun. The full version tracks constellations and Messier objects.

Horizon Groupings : Whenever you need to select an object, the list displaying the objects is split into above and below horizon groupings to make it easier to select objects which will be visible at the given time

Download the full version for

+ Night Mode
+ Constellation and Deep sky object tracking
+ Constellation and DSO names in 3D sky view.
+ Accelerometer based viewing elevation control
+ Tilt controlled map movement