Pocket Stars is a high accuracy ephemeris, star finder, and celestial navigation tool for the Windows Mobile Pocket PC, Windows Mobile Smartphone, and desktop PCs.

To get an idea of how to use Pocket Stars and its capabilities, try this short movie (of Version 3.x without recent enhancements) in Windows Media format.

Star Chart Features:

• Supports all PocketPC devices including WM5, WM2003SE, and all resolutions including QVGA, VGA, square, portrait and landscape modes.
• User interface optimized for simple and fast star, planet, Messier, and Caldwell object identification. Single click on any body to get the name, designation, calculated altitude, azimuth, and magnitude. Drag the cursor to scroll the chart. Zoom in and out with a single click.
• 3D Orrery display of solar system and background stars and constellations.
• Display of orbital paths for inner solar system bodies showing daily positions for one year centered on current date.
• Animation of the sky in increments of hours, days, weeks, or months.
• Manual or automatic control of star magnitudes. Simple control over which objects to display. Overall, these features give great control of visual clutter given the limited screen real estate on the Pocket PC.
• Black, white, and red star chart colors for normal, bright, and night viewing conditions, respectively. Complete skinning or customization of star chart colors.
• Chart can be rotated to any of the 16 compass points and also flipped along the North - South axis. This allows the either overhead (East and West reversed) or non-overhead (East and West normal) viewing.
• Polar grid with hour angle and declination labels.
• Zenith grid.
• Search and scroll to constellation, body, star, or Messier / Caldwell objects.
• User location set by clicking on map, city selection, GPS, or by entering Latitude and Longitude.
• Chart can be "live, realtime", or static for any user selected time.
• Core positional calculation routines based on "Novas" (Naval Observatory Vector Astrometry Subroutines Version 2.0.1).
• Star data is from the Bright Star Catalog (5th Revised Edition), comprising the 9110 brightest stars using J2000 equatorial positions and the International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF). Corrections are performed for proper motions and parallax.

Celestial Navigation Features:

• Reduction from sextant altitude to observed altitude for any of the 9110 stars, nine planets, and sun and moon. Watch this movie to see how it's done.
• Corrections for observer height (DIP), refraction (temperature and atmospheric pressure), and vessel movement.
• Position from intercept and azimuth by calculation for multiple sextant observations following procedures in "The Nautical Almanac" by the United States Naval Observatory.
• Any number of sextant observations can be individually enabled to compute a best fit when computing a FIX. Results may be plotted, showing the assumed position (AP), FIX, and observations with intercepts and amplitudes.
• Intermediate calculations for each observation can be displayed, with selectable formats (DD.dddd, DD MM.mm, DD MM SS) for degrees, minutes, seconds.

Other Features:

• Rise, set, and meridian times for all solar system bodies.
• Lunar Phase calendar and animation showing the relative positions of the earth, moon, and sun.
• Images and physical data for planets, moon and sun. Optional display of all 110 Messier objects through separate free download.
• Calculators for Great Circle Distances, Range and Bearing, Horizon Distances, Julian Day, and degree minute seconds conversions.
• Full screen mode.