No more damp paper... StarLog is here!

[Bas van Krieken (Bas van Krieken)]

For years I have logged all my astronomical observations on printouts, made in excel. Carefully arranging all the columns so that it would fit on one page.

Then in the field, every time I was fiddling around with red lights, tables and pencils ('cause ballpoints won't write well on damp paper). And then, the next morning I'd take my notes and I'd copy everything over to my logging software. Sometimes, the stuff I wrote was unintelligeble, since I tried to write it with half frozen fingers and almost no light...

But, now I'm past all that! I made a logging app for Android! Check it out!

[Bas van Krieken (Bas van Krieken)]

Did I mention that the app can export all your observations in OAL format?
So it is compatible with a lot of astronomical software.

It also has text-to-speech for the object data

[Bas van Krieken (Bas van Krieken)]

I've just reduced the price of the app to encourage people to start it

[steve000 (Steve)]

Cool but.... 99c apps make most money and free but limited use gets people hooked. Personally i never buy an app unless i get to use it for a while

[Bas van Krieken (Bas van Krieken)]

So do you think that if I make StarLog 99c, a lot more people will buy it?

[Bas van Krieken (Bas van Krieken)]

I did some research, but the 99c argument is incorrect, none of the major research articles on this subject found concrete proof that a 99c app will yield better profits...

Would you be interested in a free but limited version of StarLog?
And what would be acceptable limitations?

[JerryL (Jerry)]

I've been looking for something just like this. I think I'll give it a try.

thanks
JL

[Bas van Krieken (Bas van Krieken)]

I hope you like it Jerry

[michaellxv (Michael)]

So I took the plunge and bought it.
Here's my review, testing on an Asus Transformer.

Main layout:
Only displays in portrait mode. I personaly hate this with the 16:10 ratio of Android tablets. Fine for a phone, crap for a tablet. Needs a portrait mode, actually needs a tablet layout as everything looks really big so probably looks better on a phone size screen.

Top third displays telescope, EP, barlow and object name. On a tablet could be a smaller font to make room for more info.

Next a row of buttons for search : observation overview : observation details

An image of the selected object scaled to the viewing magnification with a circle indicating the FOV. There is enough displayed outside of the FOV that it could be used to find an object.

At the bottom, the name, type, constellation, size, mag, and location of the selected object.

Search window:
Reasonably intuitive, but currently has Messier, NGC and Planets. While images for objects from other catalogues may not be readily available on the internet it would still be nice if other catalogues were available to search. Catalogues include more that just the image such as position and mag etc.

Observation overview:
Displays a list of observed objects. Selecting one takes you to the observation details for the object. It does not change the object selected on the main screen.

The Sort by window has a title of Choose Telescope.

Observation details:
Has just about all the fields you would want to record, most are pre populated with the current selections with a description field to fill out at the bottom. A lot of wasted space so that you do have to scroll down to get the description field. There is a record button if you want to talk rather than type. Save and cancel buttons at the top and bottom but they disapear from view on the middle of the scroll.

Menu button:
Gets you day/night mode, settings and help. Settings lets you and your own collection of telescopes, EP, barlow and filters. Create you own locations and import/export your observations. The location is just a name and does not use the GPS or the standard list of major cities.
It only works from the main screen.

Export function:
I got a (StringIndexOutOfBounds) error trying to export in OAL format. CSV format worked.

Night mode:
Weather in night or day mode this app stops the tablet going to sleep, which is good since the unlock screen is never in night mode.

Overall a nice start to what I hope develops into a very functional app.

[Bas van Krieken (Bas van Krieken)]

Hi Michael!

Thanks a lot for this quick review!
I'll react to each point in your review inline.

Originally Posted by michaellxv

So I took the plunge and bought it.
Here's my review, testing on an Asus Transformer.

Main layout:
Only displays in portrait mode. I personaly hate this with the 16:10 ratio of Android tablets. Fine for a phone, crap for a tablet. Needs a portrait mode, actually needs a tablet layout as everything looks really big so probably looks better on a phone size screen.

Top third displays telescope, EP, barlow and object name. On a tablet could be a smaller font to make room for more info.

The layouts are now designed to work for both phones and tablets, some things are scaled to fill the available space.
You are using a 10" tablet (as do I to develop the layouts), but a 7" tablet user might actually like the fact that the fonts are a tad on the big side, since their screen dpi is higher, which makes everything on screen optically smaller.

Although dedicated tablet layouts might improve the UI to some extend, not much in the sense of functionality would be added. I should also mention that the number of available screen sizes and resolutions out there, would make it very time consuming to make dedicated layouts. We're on the brink of full HD screens i.e.

Originally Posted by michaellxv

Next a row of buttons for search : observation overview : observation details

An image of the selected object scaled to the viewing magnification with a circle indicating the FOV. There is enough displayed outside of the FOV that it could be used to find an object.

At the bottom, the name, type, constellation, size, mag, and location of the selected object.

Search window:
Reasonably intuitive, but currently has Messier, NGC and Planets. While images for objects from other catalogues may not be readily available on the internet it would still be nice if other catalogues were available to search. Catalogues include more that just the image such as position and mag etc.

The number of astronomical catalogues out there is surprisingly large, there are tens of them. Including all these catalogues would make the file size of the app much larger, while most observers will probably never use any of the objects in them. Most observers, not all but most, are primarily familiar with the Messier and NGC catalogues, as they are used extensively in magazines, hand controllers and star charts. Please note that the absence of a catalogue does not prevent you from logging an object, in the log screen you can change the object name to any object you like!

Originally Posted by michaellxv

Observation overview:
Displays a list of observed objects. Selecting one takes you to the observation details for the object. It does not change the object selected on the main screen.

Selecting and viewing a previously saved observation does indeed not change the settings in the main screen. I thought doing that might confuse the user during an observation session. But it might be an idea to make a setting for this.

Originally Posted by michaellxv

The Sort by window has a title of Choose Telescope.

Ah that is a bug Thanks for letting me know!

Originally Posted by michaellxv

Observation details:
Has just about all the fields you would want to record, most are pre populated with the current selections with a description field to fill out at the bottom. A lot of wasted space so that you do have to scroll down to get the description field. There is a record button if you want to talk rather than type. Save and cancel buttons at the top and bottom but they disapear from view on the middle of the scroll.

You mention a lot of wasted space. I deliberately left some space between each field so that the user doesn't get lost in all the headers, dividing lines and fields. I felt that putting them closer together made things look messy Do you consider the added space to be a mayor drawback?

Originally Posted by michaellxv

Menu button:
Gets you day/night mode, settings and help. Settings lets you and your own collection of telescopes, EP, barlow and filters. Create you own locations and import/export your observations. The location is just a name and does not use the GPS or the standard list of major cities.
It only works from the main screen.

Export function:
I got a (StringIndexOutOfBounds) error trying to export in OAL format. CSV format worked.

Hmmm that should not have happened, obviously I didn't run into that error while testing the app, nor did any of the other testers. Maybe you could send me a backup of starlog so I can examine your data? Please PB me.

Originally Posted by michaellxv

Night mode:
Weather in night or day mode this app stops the tablet going to sleep, which is good since the unlock screen is never in night mode.

Overall a nice start to what I hope develops into a very functional app.

Thanks again for your review!

[Bas van Krieken (Bas van Krieken)]

I have just released a Free version and a Lite version of StarLog!

Limitations of the Free version compared to the Full version of StarLog©:

• No search option for objects.
• No restore option for backups.
• Only 5 observations can be exported to either CSV or OAL format.
• Only 5 observations can be imported from apps like 'Stargazing Log' and 'FOViewer (full or trial)'.
• No text-to-speech option.
• No voice recording functionality.
• Ad in the logging screen and details screen.

Limitations of the Lite version compared to the Full version of StarLog©:

• No search option for objects.
• Only 5 observations can be exported in OAL format.
• Only 5 observations can be imported from apps like 'Stargazing Log' and 'FOViewer (full or trial)'.
• No text-to-speech option.
• No voice recording functionality.

So now there is a StarLog version to suit every wallet
PS. The Lite version was released literally minutes ago, so it might not show up in the Play store yet.

[steve000 (Steve)]

Very cool man, 99c was based on my own opinion and friends. How good are you at xcode and object C hahaha i.e iOS

[JerryL (Jerry)]

Bas,

I've got a couple of suggestions. First, and this could just be my phone, is there a way to turn of the keyboard vibrate? I'm running ICS and I've turned off both keyboard vibrate options. Other apps use the standard keyboard but yours seems to use a custom keyboard.

Next, a setting to disable the auto-download of the image would be great. I observe from a lot of locations where I don't get good service so the phone will be in airplane mode most of the time. It seems to slow down main screen if there is no network and the mag and FOV calculations don't update. If I could just disable the picture download I'd be much happier. I could also see an option for caching images if that's not already happening.

Finally, and this is without using the app in the field, I think it would be great to be able to enter one or more lists of objects, either through the UI or through an import screen. Then in place of the object on the main screen you could select your observing list and the first object on the list would be displayed. Some navigation buttons or a swipe could move back and forth between objects. It would be cool if my list contained objects from one of your supported catalogs if the images could be downloaded and cached for later use in the field. I can think of lots of cool ways to link the lists to objects and observations. It would be a great way to track progress against your Messier or Caldwell lists.

I'll let you know how things work after I use it in the field.

thanks,
JL

[Bas van Krieken (Bas van Krieken)]

Originally Posted by steve000

Very cool man, 99c was based on my own opinion and friends. How good are you at xcode and object C hahaha i.e iOS

I would realy like to start coding for iOS, but as far as I can tell you have to own an Apple desktop to do so. I don't have an Apple yet and they are quite expensive

[Bas van Krieken (Bas van Krieken)]

Originally Posted by JerryL

Bas,

I've got a couple of suggestions. First, and this could just be my phone, is there a way to turn of the keyboard vibrate? I'm running ICS and I've turned off both keyboard vibrate options. Other apps use the standard keyboard but yours seems to use a custom keyboard.

It is not just your phone StarLog uses a custom keyboard to ensure a true nightvision experience. The vibration is build in, so that you get good tactile feedback while using the keyboard in the dark. A setting to switch between de StarLog and the normal Android keyboard is already on my RFC list, so stay tuned

Originally Posted by JerryL

Next, a setting to disable the auto-download of the image would be great. I observe from a lot of locations where I don't get good service so the phone will be in airplane mode most of the time. It seems to slow down main screen if there is no network and the mag and FOV calculations don't update. If I could just disable the picture download I'd be much happier. I could also see an option for caching images if that's not already happening.

This is great feedback! The images that the app downloads are already cached, so you only have to download an image once.
I will try and change the code so that the calculations are no longer dependend on the succesfull download of the object images.

Originally Posted by JerryL

Finally, and this is without using the app in the field, I think it would be great to be able to enter one or more lists of objects, either through the UI or through an import screen. Then in place of the object on the main screen you could select your observing list and the first object on the list would be displayed. Some navigation buttons or a swipe could move back and forth between objects. It would be cool if my list contained objects from one of your supported catalogs if the images could be downloaded and cached for later use in the field. I can think of lots of cool ways to link the lists to objects and observations. It would be a great way to track progress against your Messier or Caldwell lists.

I was already thinking along the same lines as you do! I was also thinking that StarLog may in the future help you keep track of observations lists. I've put it on the RFC list!

Originally Posted by JerryL

I'll let you know how things work after I use it in the field.

Please do, I'm looking forward to your feedback.

Originally Posted by JerryL

thanks,
JL

[Bas van Krieken (Bas van Krieken)]

An update for all the StarLog versions has just been released!

In this update I've added a setting to switch between the night vision keyboard or the Android keyboard of your device. This setting is only applicable in night mode. When the app is running in day mode, the Android keyboard is always used.

The FOV and magnification calculations are now done independently from the image downloads. So the calculations will be done even if you do not have an internet connection.

I've fixed a bug concerning the placement of the ad in the free version, it should no longer obscure other UI elements.

You can expect this update later today

Enjoy!

[TrevorW]

Is the date time and location automatically populated, my Nexus 7 has built in GPS

[Bas van Krieken (Bas van Krieken)]

Originally Posted by TrevorW

Is the date time and location automatically populated, my Nexus 7 has built in GPS

The date and time are automatically populated, your location isn't.

StarLog works with user defined location. The reason for this is the fact that a lot of astronomical software that uses CSV import formats, doesn't support coordinates, but only a location name.

[Bas van Krieken (Bas van Krieken)]

Hi all,

The next 10 StarLog buyers that leave a positive written feedback (a nice testimonial) about the app in the Play store, will get their purchase refunded! That means you get StarLog and any future updates for free!

Let me know when you've left feedback and I'll make sure you'll get you money back asap.

[Bas van Krieken (Bas van Krieken)]

*UPDATE*

The current versions of StarLog now have the ability to use observation lists. You can import observation list in CSV format. With this new feature you can e-mail a CSV import file to yourself, then open it on your device and Android will show you a list of apps that can open CSV files. Choose StarLog from this list and you will be able to import the list as an observation list. Observation lists can be accessed by swiping to the left in the main StarLog screen.

When you log an object, StarLog will check all your observation lists to see if the object is mentioned. If it finds the object being logged in an observation list, it will automatically check off the object in that list.

The format of the import file is:

The delimiting character for the fields in the CSV file needs to be a ';' (semicolon). 
The first row of the import file is considered to be a header row and will not be imported.

The definition of the fields in the import file are as follows:

Object name (alfanumeric field, e.i.: 'M 1', 'NGC 2312', 'Abell 12')
Alternative object name (alfanumeric field, e.i.: 'NGC 1952 - Crab Nebula - Taurus A - Crab Pulsar')
RA coordinates (alfanumeric field, e.i. '05h34m32s')
DEC coordinates (alfanumeric field, e.i. '22d00m52s')
Constellation (alfanumeric field, e.i. 'Taurus')
Type (alfanumeric field, e.i. 'Supernova remnant', 'Galaxy')
Magnitude (numeric field, e.i. '8.4', '12.3')
Surface brightness (numeric field, e.i. '11.9', '12.3')
Size (alfanumeric field, e.i. ' 8.0'x4.0' ')
The fields need to be in the exact order as listed above!

Example:

M 1;NGC 1952 - Crab Nebula - Taurus A - Crab Pulsar;05h34m32s;22d00m52s;Taurus;Supernova remnant;8.4;11.9;8.0'x4.0'

M 33;H400 22 - NGC 598 - Triangulum Galaxy - Triangulum Pinwheel  Galaxy;01h33m52s;30d39m27s;Triangulum;Galaxy;5.5;13.9;68.7'x41.6'

The full and lite version of StarLog allow you to import complete observation lists, the free version will only import the first 10 objects from the CSV file.

Another step in my quest to eliminate those pesky damp paper observation list!

Enjoy!