KeckWatch 4+

I don’t know if any free apps that are worth a hoot. They have pop-ups or you press a name for more information on the celestial object and a pop up greets you wanting more money. This one is different. Not sure what their motive was other than to share fun, because there is no money involved with this in any way whatsoever. As a single dad, in college at 38 years old (and have been for 5 years now- and almost done!!) 3$ or 4$ is more than I can spare. Seriously. A year from now that should be a different story, but for now, I can’t. And I am so appreciative of this app first for being free, 2nd because my 11 year old daughter has this app and two other astronomy apps on her phone and nothing else. She loves it. I love that it needs zero adult supervision and my daughter and I have spent so many hours outside with this app according to her screen app time and mine. On my phone in the last year I have 305 hours of screen time. She has 780 hours screen objects that you can see with (or up to) a REALLY good 4” refractor, this app MORE than suffices. Great job Keck-People!!!

By far my favorite stargazing app! This app has it all from stargazing on the beach to keeping me up to date with the observatory and telescopes. This app is packed with useful information!

I’ve used many different night sky apps and this one has got to be the least intuitive to navigate around the sky. You don’t know what direction you’re looking because you can’t find direction markers; I have no idea where the horizon is or what’s in relation to what. The labeling on the sky chart is all over the place in terms of font size, style, color… preferences allow you to turn things on the sky chart on and off such as mythological figures, object names, etc. it’s clear this app has all kinds of cool features but IMO they’re clumsily rendered. It’s just confusing to use.

My go to night sky app is SkySafari - it’s waaaaaay better in every way with superior features, way better sky chart, more intuitive interface, way more settings, millions object database, outstanding simulations, and on and on. Keck Watch could be a contender but it’s got a long way to go rethinking their presentation and user controls. Other good ones are Stellarium, Luminos, GoSkyWatch, Sky View, Sky Walk.