Friday, April 3, 2009

Pocket Stars 5.8.0.0 Beta

Well it’s been a long time coming but I’m finally ready to start beta testing a new version of Pocket Stars for PC and PDA (but not SP).  While this is largely a “fit and finish” release, fixing a few longstanding bugs, and cleaning up the UI, I did add one major new feature: comets.

image

In 3D view, you can see the real-time Alt/Az of the comet, a section of the path, and the absolute (“M-abs”) and apparent (“M-app”) magnitudes.  Comet elements are downloaded dynamically from Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

Comets

To display comets follow these steps:

  • Download and install the beta from a link below
  • On the Objects page, press the Download button next to the Comets checkbox
  • Select the minimum magnitude of comets to be displayed

I also added momentum to the chart when scrolling with a stylus and cleaned up the display somewhat.  If you do test this beta, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE send feedback (jaybo@nomadelectronics.com) on any problems or issues you encounter. Email that everything is AOK helps too.

Download PDA Version, Beta 5.8.0.0

PocketStars.ppc30_arm.CAB   (run this file directly on your PDA)
PocketStars.ppc30_arm.EXE   (run on PC with ActiveSync connection to PDA)
PocketStarsOTA.exe     (Over the Air, run this file directly on your PDA)

Download PC Version, Beta 5.8.0.0

PocketStars.msi 

Tested using the following systems:

PocketPC
iPaq 1910, WinCE 4.20
iPaq hx4700, WinCE 5.1
Sprint VX6800, WinCE 6.0

PC
Win2K
XP
Vista
Win7