Our Galaxy2.1.0 - App Store

Our Galaxy is a unique app for both amateur astronomers and astronomy educators. It helps you visualize the 3-dimensional locations of deep sky objects in and around our galaxy, and provides you with an understanding of their physical properties. It addition, it illustrates the structural components of the Galaxy, including the thin disk, thick disk, galactic bulge and stellar halo.

The 3-D interface allows you to see where the cluster or nebula of interest is located relative to the center and plane of the Galaxy. By panning around, or moving closer to or farther away from the object, you derive a sense of where the object really is in 3-dimensional space.

The app enhances the observing experience by helping the user arrive at an intuitive sense of physical location, size, luminosity, and distance for the chosen object. It also serves as a great tool for education and outreach with its unusual visual perspective on the location of deep sky objects and their relationship to the center and plane of our galaxy.

See more videos and screenshots at the otherwise.com website.

Our Galaxy is also available of macOS.

Version History • Improvements to the display of Search results.
• Search panel remembers previous search parameters. Use Reset to clear them.
• Added Proxima Centauri to database. Even though it's fainter than the 6th mag cutoff, it is special as the closest star other than the Sun.
• Fixed bug where the built-in view for the M81 Group was showing the Centaurus group by mistake.
• Miscellaneous small tweaks to database.
• Miscellaneous small UI tweaks. 2.1.0 08/12/2021 - Fixed screen layout problem on iPad Mini.
- By popular request, we've reversed zoom directions when using scroll wheel or track pad. 2.0.6 05/22/2021 - Improved opening startup screen
- Hooked up the "Review on App Store" item in the Help 2.0.5 05/15/2021 Our Galaxy 2.0 is a complete rewrite of the app to support running on all major platforms. While the user interface is slightly different, users of the earlier version should feel right at home. See the otherwise.com website for details.

Our Galaxy is now a free app on all platforms. Spread the word to your friends. 2.0.4 05/06/2021 1. Renamed "Orion Spur" to be "Local Arm".
2. Fixed a few UI glitches.
3. Added privacy statement. No data collected. 1.2.6 03/17/2021 • Fixed bug where the diffuse nebula type (Emission, Reflection, Emission+Reflection) where not being read correctly from the database. 1.2.3 08/20/2020 • Fixed data for 10 stars in the database that had their distance off by a factor of 1000.
• Made slight improvements to Search. 1.2.2 08/04/2020 • New constellation lines in Sky View. These match the lines in SkySafari.
• You can now label the constellations in both Sky View and Galaxy View.
• Labeling of Stars and Deep Sky Objects has been enhanced. There is now a slider so you can adjust the maximum magnitude of the labeled Stars or DSOs. This allows you to turn on labelling of Stars and DSOs without overwhelming the view with labels of faint objects.
• Added many more common names to the objects in the database.
• Performance improvements 1.2.0 05/15/2020 • Fixed zooming bug in version 1.1.1
• A few changes on how the Galaxy is draw when viewed edge-on
• Changed back to behavior of "Edge On View" so it places you in the plane of the Galaxy
• Small fixes to night-vision mode
• Changes for promotion with Astronomers Without Borders 1.1.2 04/11/2020 • A few changes on how the Galaxy is draw when viewed edge-on
• Changed back to behavior of "Edge On View" so it places you in the plane of the Galaxy
• Small fixes to night-vision mode
• Changes for promotion with Astronomers Without Borders 1.1.1 04/11/2020 • Added "Record Movie" option in the main Menu. This will make a screen recording of the app and save it to your Photos.
• Added animations that can be invoked by double tapping the center top, left, bottom and right edges.
• Added keyboard shortcuts on iOS for use when paired with a bluetooth keyboard. See Help for the list of shortcuts
• Improved rendering of the thick and thin disks and the dust clouds.
• Improved zooming behavior, especially when zooming into the galactic bulge.
• Fixed a couple of night vision issues.
• Updates to the Help. 1.1 03/20/2020 Taking care of a few rough edges found in the initial release:

• Increased the size of some objects in the Sky View
• Fixed problem where stars shown in Galaxy View were not appearing in Sky View
• Fixed crash showing Object Info on some versions of iOS 11 and 12
• Fixed problem with find panel on some versions of iOS 11 and 12 1.0.1 03/02/2020 1.0 02/29/2020