The Planets

A Solar System planetarium on your Garmin smart watch - both beautiful and practical. Your very own Antikythera Mechanism, right on your wrist! * What's up tonight, right now? Planets, moon, sun, solar events at a glance. * What's coming up in the next week or month? The dance of the planets over time. * What's going to happen over the next 10, 50, 100, or even 10,000 years? A scientifically accurate solar system animation, for anyone interested in astronomy, the night sky, celestial events, or even those who follow astrology for religious or cultural reasons. * SKY VIEW includes all visible planets, sun, and moon visible tonight and in upcoming nights. * SOLAR SYSTEM ANIMATION IN THREE-D includes the eight major planets, plus the sun and the moon, and eight of the most prominent dwarf planets & asteroids in the Solar System. View top-down, from the side, rotate, or any viewing angle. * Beautiful AND scientifically/astronomically accurate presentation & animations. Project Wiki with more details, settings, and usage information: https://github.com/bhugh/ThePlanets/wiki *******MORE DETAILS THE PLANETS shows positions of sun & planets in the sky, and moving top-down and 3D views of the solar system from close, medium, and wide views. It's a Solar System Planetarium & naked-eye/binocular astronomy viewing guide on your wrist: What is up tonight or right now? at a glance. Sunrise, sunset, moon phase, season - solstice, equinox - as seen from your location today and tonight, all viewable at a glance. Or dive deeper into planetary, dwarf planet, & asteroid motion in the Solar System in the years & decades ahead and past. Watch tonight's sky, or the outer Solar System over the next 4000 years, unfold in beautiful animations and graphics. The planetary motion model is based on algorithms from the sophisticated VSOP model of planetary motion for very good accuracy for visual and general observation purposes for hundreds and thousands of years into the past and future. You can view solar system, planet, and dwarf planet, positions with good accuracy through tens of thousands of years into the future or past. *******Tips About Screens & General Usage TIP. HORIZON BAR in TOP DOWN & 3D Solar System Views represent your current horizon and view towards the Ecliptic - the plane where the sun, moon, and major planets orbit. The end bars aim up towards the Ecliptic, with the yellow bar to the east and the red bar to the west. TIP: Top-bottom of Large SKY VIEW CIRCLE are Solar Noon Midnight (marks). TIP: Horizontal moving marks in the SKY VIEW CIRCLE are the HORIZON - anything above them is visible in the sky. Moving upper mark is the MERIDIAN, highest point of the ecliptic at your location right now. TIP: The Large SKY VIEW CIRCLE represents the ECLIPTIC, the apparent path of the Sun & Planets across the sky. TIP: Choose TRADITIONAL PLANETS, DWARF PLANETS, or BOTH in the Menu. Note how orderly the orbits of the traditional planets are (except for Pluto - actually a Dwarf Planet), vs the Dwarf Planet's orbits. TIP: Planet positions are accurate to within 1.2 deg for the period 2000BC to 6000 AD (a variance of 1.2 degrees would be just barely noticeable on your screen - so for practical purposes, the simulation is scientifically & visually accurate through at least those dates.) APP TECHNICAL DETAILS Using the Greg Miller's VSOP Pico algorithm gives nearly all planetary positions 4000BC-6000AD within 1.2 degrees of actual position (and accuracy is far better 2125 +/-100 years). Use of the even higher-quality to the Nano algorithm was attempted and would improve accuracy by about 3X but takes far more memory - more than is available on most watch models and runs 20-30X slower. Moon position algorithm and Sunrise/Sunset algorithms are also based on code from Greg Millers Celestial Programming web page, all heavily adapted to work within the very limited watch context. See https://www.celestialprogramming.com

M-A-J-O-R update with version 2.2. What's NEW? - Innovative new HORIZON BAR helps you find your viewpoint in the cosmos and the Solar System - in 3D. Instantly relate what you see on your watch to what you see in the sky right now. - With V2.2, the HORIZON BAR is EVEN BETTER, showing in 3D views as you move time forward or backward. - THREE-D LIVE SOLAR SYSTEM ANIMATION on your watch - see the Solar System unfold before your eyes. Change the viewpoint to see it from above, below, the side. See it next month, next year, the next century or millenium . . . or go that far - or more! - into the past. - Accurate PHASES OF THE MOON along with moon location in the sky, - HORIZON indicator in Circle View, and HORIZON BAR in 3-D Solar System Views shows instantly what is up, what is down, what is rising, and what is setting - relating everything you see on the screen to what you see as you look at the sky outside. - Watch the sun & planets on fast-forward as they move from solstice to equinox, as days grow longer & shorter, as the planets' rise & set times vary. - DAWN, DUSK, SUNRISE, SUNSET, PLANET RISE/SET at a glance. And . . . watch how these unfold & change through the seasons. - CHANGE YOUR LOCATION to see how days & nights, rise & set varies at the equator, the arctic circle, the north or south pole. MINDBLOWING... - The EIGHT TRADITIONAL PLANETS plus EIGHT of the most prominent ASTEROIDS & DWARF PLANETS in the Solar System. Seven of these eight dwarf planets were discovered since 2002. - The ASTEROID BELT. - See how the DWARF PLANET and PLANET orbits relate and differ, how they influence each other - in 3D. It's like having your own (20th-Century highly accurate) Antikythera Mechanism, right on your wrist and ready to go whenever you need it. - Views of the CURRENT SKY and INNER, OUTER, and FAR OUTER SOLAR SYSTEM. And again, it's all designed to relate what you see on your watch to what you are seeing outside in the sky, right now. - IMPROVED, EASIER NAVIGATION: Every mode starts with time stopped. Up/Down (swipe on some watches) move time forward or back a step. START or STOP TIME with the START key (tap screen on some watches). - BACK BUTTON to change to the next mode (8 modes in total) or exit quickly. BACK-SELECT moves forward a mode, while BACK-BACK exits instantly. BACK+UP or DOWN moves quickly between the EIGHT different modes. (Again, for many watches UP/DOWN is a swipe, and SELECT is a tap. BACK is sometimes a swipe as well.) - BANNERS when you switch modes explain each mode and how to navigate. However, once you are onto how the app and various modes work, you can switch them off via SETTINGS/VERBOSE BANNERS. - MANY useful options accessible via MENU. - MANY new devices added. THE PLANETS now works on most Garmin GPS devices and EDGE bike computer devices, as well as most watches. - Accompanying and complementing the app, a new THE PLANETS GLANCE/WIDGET was recently released (search the App Store). The App is far more detailed, but the Widget gives you the basics literally at a glance. The Widget includes the SKY VIEW CIRCLE functionality plus a Glance View that tells you what is up now (or up this morning/this evening) literally at a glance - and you can access it quickly from your watchface, similar to a weather widget. *** Works well on all devices tested - from Vivoactive HR to Instinct to FR 965. But I can't own & test 200+ devices! Pls contact me with the details (email in sidebar) if the app doesn't work or crashes on your device. *** V2.11 has an important and difficult fix to the minor/dwarf planet algorithm, and UI improvements to make lines & orbits more easily visible. *** V2.12 has usability improvements and a few bug fixes. *** V2.13 fixes a longstanding/difficult issue with calculating Pluto's position. *** V2.14 adds support for the new Instinct devices. *** V2.2 greatly improved the Horizon Bar function and fixed an error with moon position.