David Smith has a new Apple Watch app out, and it’s right up my space nerd alley:
Moon++ seeks to provide a highly accurate, visually pleasing indication of what the moon looks like right now, right where you are. My goal was to make it so that if you look down at your wrist and then up into the sky the images you see should match.
The level of detail here is excellent:
Building it has been a fun little adventure into astronomy. The moon image I generate is adjusting itself for all manner of astronomical factors. I got to learn about such fun terms as: parallactic angle, libration, and lunar terminator.
Within the actual app itself it displays the current location of the moon in the sky (azimuth and elevation) along the horizon. If you rotate the Digital Crown you can shift forward and backwards through time.
Additionally, on the new Series 5 Apple Watch, which is equipped with a compass, you can have Moon++ orient itself towards the actual moon to make it easier to locate the moon in the sky.
Easiest $0.99 I’ve spent on the App Store in a while.
Moon++ is the first Watch-only app I’ve downloaded. I purchased it on my iPhone, but it didn’t show up on my Apple Watch until I followed these directions, captured by Greg Pierce on Twitter:
Apple is clearly not super confident that purchasing a watch-only app on your phone will actually result in an app appearing on your watch. pic.twitter.com/JmP8uUfy20
— Greg Pierce (@agiletortoise) September 26, 2019