From my current Facebook post:If you have even a casual interest in the night sky and own an iPad, you owe it to yourself to buy the Emerald Observatory app. I’ve been using it for over a decade now and it’s one of the few apps I truly love now just as much as the day I purchased it. The price is probably just a few dollars. As an instructional designer and technologist as well as a software developer, I’m simply in awe of how beautifully and perfectly this app is designed and the amount of information that is clearly displayed on ONE screen. Data visualization geeks and designers, take note! This is how the best of the best do it. Exquisite and elegant in every way.

I have had this app for at least six years. It's hard to overstate how much I love it. First, it's beautiful just as a clock, but there is so much more. Sometimes I need a quick UTC reference, and it's there. Sometimes I just want to know what planets are going to be up in the night sky, and it's there. I have watched a few eclipses on it, because they aren't often visible from my spot on earth. I've learned about solar and sidereal time and so much else by exploring this app. It's simply great.

Also a longtime user, this app is essential if one wants to know our ‘place’ in the solar system, at any time in the day and in any season. The sun swing from solstice to solstice, the local sunrise and sunset, the variation in the day length over the year, are all tracked precisely in an elegant and beautiful manner. Only one wish- that I had this Emerald Observatory as a large clock on the wall in a place where I could glance at it often!

I’ve used this app ever since Andy Ihnatko reviewed it some 15 years ago. I still use it to see when sunrises and sunsets will occur to set light timers at my house. When I read the original developers were shutting it down I was sad because no other app can really do what this one can. I am ecstatic to see that its development was picked up and I had an update today. Thank you for picking up the torch!