Best Tools for Stargazing
Stargazing is the one category where the software genuinely got better rather than merely newer, because the sky has not changed and the screens have.
Stellarium is the place to start and it is free. It began as desktop planetarium software, it is open source, and it now runs on a phone. Point it up and it names what you are looking at; wind it forward and it shows you what will rise. The desktop version is still the best way to plan an evening before you go.
What to actually do with it on a trip:
- Check the moon before anything else. A full moon washes out everything faint. The three or four nights either side of new moon are worth planning a trip around, and it is the single biggest factor in whether a night is any good.
- Get away from town, further than you think. Twenty minutes of driving usually buys more sky than any amount of equipment. Dark-sky reserves and national parks are the reliable version of this.
- Use red light and then wait. Full dark adaptation takes twenty to thirty minutes and one glance at a white phone screen resets it. Every app here has a red night mode. Turn it on before you sit down.
- Binoculars beat a telescope for travel. A cheap 10x50 pair shows you the Andromeda galaxy, the Orion nebula and the moons of Jupiter, packs into a daypack, and needs no setting up in the cold.
The Southern Hemisphere is the reason to care about this on a trip. If you have only ever looked up from Europe or North America, the Magellanic Clouds and the core of the Milky Way overhead from somewhere like the Atacama or central Australia are not a better version of the same sky. They are a different one.
Part of the guide to gadgets and power.