An observatory in your pocket: Star Walk for iPhone and iPod touch

I've always had a fascination with astronomy. Even when I'm not lugging my telescope out to do deep sky work, I'm using my eyes and binoculars to see what's visible in the night sky. Now I can use my iPhone to help me figure out where some of the night objects are — even when it's light outside.

VITO Technology has just released Star Walk (click opens iTunes), a US$4.99 astronomy app that shows you what's in the sky above. It has an internal database of almost 9,000 objects including the planets, various stars and clusters, and more.

While not for serious amateur astronomers, this is a great tool for anyone who is interested in knowing more about the universe they live in. There's a moon phase calculator, a time machine function to show you what the skies were like or will look like on any day. If you have an iPhone 3G, Star Walk uses GPS to automatically determine where you are on Earth to adjust the view. First-generation iPhone and iPod touch users can select their city from a list.

Star Walk should be a great app for teaching youngsters or yourself more about astronomy.