ezSights 1.1.16
Device: iOS Universal
Category: Navigation
Price: $24.99, Version: 1.1.15 -> 1.1.16 (iTunes)
Description:ezSights is a complete celestial navigation package for the iPhone®, iPod touch® and iPad®. It provides simple interfaces for entering sight parameters, planning the navigational bodies to use and time of day to make the observations, and entering the observations made using a sextant. Then with the click of a button a fix is determined from the observations made. Features ▪ Internally calculated Nautical Almanac values, valid through 2060. ▪ Performs all calculations with same algorithms used by the US Naval Observatory for the Nautical Almanac. ▪ Supports all navigational bodies currently referenced in the Nautical Almanac. ▪ Computes rise and set times for the sun and moon. ▪ Computes moon phase, HP, parallax and semi-diameter. ▪ Animated star map to aid in locating and identifying all navigational bodies. ▪ Display of full day or twilight altitude profiles for all navigational bodies. ▪ Save current data and up to 7 previous fixes. Each session can have up to 25 observations on up to 3 navigational bodies. ▪ Supports running fixes. ▪ 2 different methods for determining a fix. ▪ Supports practice sights using a bubble horizon, artificial horizon, or large body of water using dip short. ▪ Integration with iOS® Maps to display saved fixes. Also supports setting the assumed position by dropping a pin on the map. ▪ Integration with iOS® location services to obtain position and magnetic variance. ▪ Integration with iOS® devices with compass for direction-up display of the star map and to show azimuth of object currently being observed. ▪ Integration with iOS® data network for setting UTC time from network time using NTP servers. Please check out www.ezCelestial.com for a full description of the application. Note from the developer: When I got into sailing a few years ago I had dreams of maybe crossing an ocean someday and thought it would be fun learn celestial navigation. I bought a sextant and a few "how to" books but found out pretty quickly that it was going to take a long time and be a lot of work. Not only that, but the classical method involves doing table lookups in still more books that I would have to buy (Nautical Almanac, HO 229, etc). I wanted something to get me using my new sextant FAST but there weren't a lot of affordable options. So I wrote ezSights. ezSights reduces the effort of finding a fix with a sextant down to setting a few application parameters, choosing the celestial objects to sight, and taking the sights with the sextant. When you are happy with your sights, press a button and out comes your fix! For the beginner, you should be able to get a reasonable fix the first time you use your sextant knowing little to nothing about classical celestial navigation. For the expert, you can use it in conjunction with doing classical celestial navigation. ezSights offers some nice interfaces for planning your sights and recording and editing your observations. When you are crunching the numbers, ezsights provides much of the data you need from the Nautical Almanac and calculates a sight reduction that you can use to check your work. I tried to create an application that was fun and easy to use if you are just practicing and taking a sight from your back yard, but still highly effective if you ever need it crossing an ocean. This is the application I was looking for when I bought my sextant and I hope it is what you are looking for too!
What's New
Minor bug fix.
ezSights