SkyView Free

SkyView Lite is an app that will make sure you’ll never see the night sky in the same way again. You can download SkyView Lite for your Android phone or tablet from Google Play.

Design 5/5

Design is very important for an app like SkyView Lite, and the developers at Terminal Eleven have really nailed it with this one. You can switch between several viewing modes and adjust the stars’ visibility to match your light conditions. These features are extremely helpful if you’re not in the ideal (almost completely dark) environment when using SkyView Lite. The images of the stars, planets, constellations, and other objects you see are very realistic and help you have a much better idea of what you’re currently observing.

Usability 4/5

An educational app has to be very user-friendly and accessible so that as many people as possible can use it. This is exactly the case with SkyView Lite. It is very easy to figure out, and once you know how to use it, you can spend hours exploring the sky and learning new things. For this SkyView Lite review, we’ve used the app quite extensively and never experienced any glitches or bugs.

However, you may face a different issue with SkyView Lite: it sometimes fails to detect your location correctly. As a result, you get the “wrong” stars that simply don’t correspond to what you can actually see. It is unclear what causes the app to assume the false location, and we hope to see this bug fixed in a future SkyView Lite update.

Features 5/5

If there’s something you want to learn about the night sky, you can bet it’s in SkyView Lite. You can observe the stars and planetary bodies as well as human-made objects such as satellites. You can also learn where the satellites currently are and when they are going to be passing above your location so you can actually take a look at them.

The Time Travel feature lets you jump to any point in the past and see how the sky above your head looked back then. What’s more, you can also travel to the future and check out the night sky from two months, years, or even decades later! You can also select a single object and see its sky track as well as an expected future trajectory.

In-app purchases 5/5

There are no in-app purchases offered in SkyView Lite, but you can purchase the full version of the app from Google Play.

The Bottom Line

If you’re interested in astronomy and would like to learn more, head over to Google Play and download SkyView Lite for your Android device. If you aren’t, you should totally give this app a shot because it will probably get you hooked on stargazing. Educational and fun, SkyView Lite is also an ideal way to introduce your kids to astronomy.

• Graphics 5
• Gameplay 4
• Controls 5
• Replay Value 5

Pros

Great design;
Helpful informational sections;
Free.

Cons

Location recognition is imprecise for some users.