[digitalsushi]

I'm getting kinda old and miserly but I still am deeply in love with stargazing.

I recommend to anyone who wants to try it out: get a phone app with VR so that you can easily spot where a star you want to see is, by waving it over your head. This will give you a transparent Earth and you can start to get a bit of a cadence for when stars are rising and setting.

Tracking the sun with a VR app as it sets, even if sitting inside your house on a chair, is such a cool way to sew together some concepts that sound obvious but only may be after this improvement to your vision. Seeing the orbit of Venus dotted around the setting Sun, you will quickly understand why we call it the Morning/Evening Star as it barely scopes above the visible horizon.

Learning why we call it the Dog Days of Summer is also a delight that a VR app can sew together for you as well.

I'm a novice, an absolute one - I love this hobby regardless. Spend 4.99 on a nice VR app and see if it only entices you further to open your wallet for a telescope.

[Cthulhu_]

I've tried one of those apps (Night Sky?), but I always find it's well out of alignment, stars being much further to the left or right than the app seems to indicate, things being closer together than they seem from my own perspective, etc.

Don't think it's the phone, it's a fairly new one etc (has all the AR bells and whistles on it).

[digitalsushi]

That's fair. But what a delightful failure scenario: you end up looking for the thing you set out to find.

[yial]

Perspective is very important. Sometimes - especially when looking for a specific item when doing something like stargazing, it’s amazing what else you find along the way.

[ortusdux]

None of the apps I've seen use AR. As far as I know, they are 100% gyro & compass based. These tend to need to be calibrated. G-maps has a built in calibration tool, I believe there is a calibration option in the android dev tools, and there are several apps that claim to calibrate as well.

I've been meaning to dive into ARCore, and on my list was a constellation based compass & gyro calibration app.

[Cd00d]

Please make an app recommendation.