Omega Centauri's Android software

• LunarMap HD: Browse through high-resolution maps of the moon.
• LunarMap Lite: Browse through a somewhat lower resolution map of the moon.
• SuperDim: On many backlit LCD screens, this lets the screen get significantly darker than it could ordinarily be.
• AstroRender: Proof of context unlabeled starmap.

Selected free Palm software for amateur astronomy

The applications on this page tend to be optimized for more recent, PalmOS 5+ based PDAs/phones like the Palm TX, the Centro or the Treo 650 and up, though most of them should work on Sony CLIEs, as well as as on some PalmOS 3.5+ devices. This page is maintained by Alex Pruss, and has a bias towards software that Alex Pruss has written or contributed to. Email to contribute links or for support questions.

Applications and utilities

• open2sky: An open source release of the excellent full-featured 2sky planetarium software. Includes up-to-date comet and minor planet ephemerides as of 2010/11.
Planetarium software with star charts up to magnitude 12.5 (Tycho-2 and UCAC3), planets, Messier, Caldwell, NGC, IC and other catalogs. Free (GPL).
• AstroInfo 3.5: Planetarium software with star charts up to magnitude 12.5 (Tycho-2 and UCAC3), planets, Messier, Caldwell, NGC, IC and other catalogs. Free (GPL).
• BrightnessFix: This lets you set the screen brightness a lot lower than can normally be done. There is one version for PXA270 devices such as T|E2, T|X, T|T3, T|T5, T|X, Zire72, and another for HHE devices such as TH55, UX40, UX50, VZ90.
• PalmDSC: Use Digital Setting Circles with your PalmOS device.
• AstroLog: Log your observations. Comes with Messier and NGC databases. Ignore the stuff about astrology on the tucows download page--whoever put that page together didn't know what this application did--it's definitely for astronomy and not astrology.

Desk Accessories

A Desk Accessory (DA) is typically a very small program that accomplishes a simple task, and that can be popped up using a DA launcher on top of other applications (e.g., with a key assigned to that purpose). To use a DA, you need a DA launcher. One free DA Launcher is MultiLauncher, which lets you assign one or more DAs (or applications) to a key, and will show a popup list of them when you press that key. Some shareware launchers like McPhling, ZLauncher and FastLaunch (Treo/Centro only) include DA launching facilities as well.

Or perhaps you don't want to fool around with assigning things to keys, and just want to run the DAs as if they were normal applications. In that case, you can use the free DA List application which shows a list of your available DAs and lets you run one of them.

The DAs below are mainly there to help you use your Palm in the dark.

• NightModeAstro: Run it once to turn on night mode. Run it again to turn it off. On devices that support this functionality, the white border around the screen will be turned off in night mode.
• KeyLight: This toggles the keyboard light on Treos.
• RedFlashLight: Turn your PDA's screen into a red flashlight.
• BorderDA: Toggles the two-pixel wide border around your screen on the Palm TX and LifeDrive (and maybe some other models).