SkyView‪®‬ 4+

Update: Unfortunately, I was looking in the settings to turn off the camera. It’s not in the settings. The “movie camera” icon is what turns it off. I never considered it because, well, it was a movie camera icon and I thought tapping that would start recording a movie. Sheesh. I guess I need to start thinking that icons don’t really mean what they depict. lol

I gave the app more stars.
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The stupid camera is always on and trying to find anything is ruined by the camera viewing everything around you. All the constellations and planets are so faint I can’t see them unless I’m looking straight overhead at night. If I want to see where something is that’s just on the horizon (even at night) I have to try to see where it is through the camera showing me a view of my neighbor’s house. I have to cover my camera lens to see where anything is that is not overhead at night. Can’t the camera be turned off? I can’t find any setting for it. Any help with this will result in more stars. Or I just have to delete an app I paid for.

I initially tried the SkyView Lite with my son after buying him a telescope a few weeks back. My initial thoughts of the app were great (still is) as you can point up, down, side-to-side and behind you and find what’s out there. This gets me dizzy and somewhat lost when trying relocate the object through the telescope.
A few nights back, we went to a viewing event and found another similar app (stellarium) which did not have (could be user settings) all of the constellation artwork pop ups and things getting in the way to try and find certain nebula and various other objects. His app simplified with a real-time view (potentially used a light pollution map) of what’s visible by the eye, to help find objects. He also did not have to point the app up, he held it at ground level and was able to match the stars visible currently to the eye, vs holding up the phone and getting lost within all the stars in the sky with your app.
Long story short I found some settings in this app to remove the pop up constellation artwork and reduce some of the stars, planets and satellites, however I’m not able to eliminate the point up to see option. Is there a setting for that in this app? I would like to hold the phone flat like I’m texting and see a real time view of what’s viewable with my eye, vs getting dizzy with the moving and spinning of the app.

I really fell in love with SkyView. It makes it so easy to learn about what I'm looking at in the night sky. There's one thing I think could make the app even better:

Currently the only way to look at a specific object in the sky through the app is to point and orient your device so it is facing that object, like the camera. But sometimes I would like to search around the sky without waving my phone in crazy directions, like if I'm lying in bed and want to pan over to what's under the horizon. I think it would be great to add a feature that lets you pan across the sky without needing to move your phone, so it is not oriented by the gyroscope. The view can stay at a constant zoom level, but being able to learn the stars without having to always point in that direction would be tremendously more convenient. This could be an option that you can switch on or off to keep the integrity of the original application as well. Please consider. Thanks for a wonderful contribution to the world!