I’ve just updated my Digital Setting Circles ASCOM driver, adding a few additional alignment stars in southern constellations at the request of a southern hemisphere user. I added stars in the constellations Carina, Crux, and Grus. Go to my ASCOM driver page and download the new version (1.0.8.0) there.

And an additional note to you southern hemisphere users: if you’re looking for the star Achernar, it’s actually with the constellation Phoenix in my alignment star constellations. Sorry for the confusion.

I’d been hearing lately about some astronomy software for the iPhone/iPad called SkySafari (made by Southern Stars), but not owning either one of those devices myself, I hadn’t really bothered to look into it at all. That all changed when I came across an ad for SkySafari in Sky and Telescope magazine that showed that an Android version was available. Now I became much more interested to see what the fuss was about, so I dropped $14.99 in the Google Play store for the Plus version so I could try it out on my HTC Incredible phone as well as my rooted Barnes and Noble Nook Color. Mostly, I wanted to see if SkySafari would connect to my digital setting circles box via bluetooth. Initial impressions are very good.

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