What is Moontalk
It's a fun application that opens up a little window to the wonderful world of astronomy, with just enough information to welcome our fascinating neighbors, the Moon and the Sun. It is a first step in series of planned applications that will expand on the astronomy front - while making it as easy and as fun.
MoonTalk is available on Blackberry, and will be available very soon on Droid, followed by iPhone.
Here are the main features:
- Once started, MoonTalk will either lock into the GPS signal - or allow you to set the desired location
- Show the current moon phase
- Let you navigate back and forth in time through the moon phases - or even choose your own date - in past or future, say your birthday, then display the moon phase at that date
- Display the Sun rise, Sun set, Moon rise and Moon set times for your current location
Who is it for
Anyone! if you are working on science project with your children for school, if you are a photographer that needs accurate information for your shooting, or you are in vacation in the mountains and just wondering where the Moon is around you - or just expand your knowledge of nature - Moontalk is for you.
How to use it
It's simple! most of the stuff is displayed right there on the screen as you start Moontalk. That includes the current moon phase, the current Sun and Moon rise/set times and azimuth, all at the current location.
When you start Moontalk for the first time, it will ask for permission, please select "allow". Also, if your Blackberry GPS is not enabled, please enable it.
Once opened, you can perform the following:
- Set the location. You do that by selecting longitude and latitude. Finding location's longitude and latitude is simple - just open up Google Maps and click on the desired location, a pop up will show you the longitude and latitude. Setting the location is required if GPS signal is not available, or if you want Moontalk to display information for a location which is different then your current place. Once changed, please select menu->Calculate, to update the displayed information
- Display the Sunrise/Sunset azimuth and Moonrise/Moonset azimuth for the current location
- Display the current altitude and azimuth, for both Sun and the moon at the current location
- And the best of all - some fun Moon and Sun trivia quiz!
- Scroll back and forth in time to see how moon phase changes. Do this by clicking on either the forward button or backward button. Each click jumps in one day
- Select your own date and display the moon phase for that date - you do it by clicking on the button saying "select your date", then select the desired date and click "ok". The title will be updated accordingly, and so is the moon phase
- To display the current Sun and Moon altitude and azimuth, select menu->Moon and Sun info -
A screen will open up and show the current Sun and Moon altitude and azimuth - for your location. Scroll down, and you'll see the azimuth in graphical display - that's great for quick location of the Moon and Sun. Just point your device to the north and look at the icons - is it in front or behind you, left or right? When the Moon or Sun have not risen yet, or already set, the icon will say "below horizon"
- To display the Moon and Sun trivia quiz, select menu->Moon trivia is fun! Then click on one of the three answers, a quick message will tell you if you are right or wrong - you can click on a different answer, to find out the right one. The questions are picked randomly from a pool of subjects - in science, culture and more
Get in touch
We'd love to hear from you! As we are working on the next stepping stones in this fascinating journey, we are happy to get feedback and incorporate in our next version, help you out with technical issues, or just share experience. Please write us at maildover@gmail.com