Telescope Reviews: Sky Safari: All I Want For Christmas...

Jeff, "Show in Wide Field" is fantastic and is one of the reasons I use Sky Safari far more than Starmap Pro. However, the DSO mag issue I'm describing happens with it set! In fact, if you don't have it set, you won't see many DSOs at all in a wide fov even with a mag 10 setting!

OTOH, SMP doesn't show many of the Messiers in a wide field of view regardless of settings! For example, if you didn't already know where the Virgo cluster of galaxies was, you would never find it in SMP. Well, not unless you drilled down to less than 20 degrees, when suddenly gobs of galaxies jump at you-- much as if you just left hyper space!

There are many other Messiers and bright NGCs that are essentially invisible in Starmap.

It's sad really... Starmap Pro has so much else going for it-- one-tap pop up of info and photo in a mini window; one-tap scrolling photo bar of what's up; excellent optics/eyepiece views; etc. OTOH, it's often difficult or impossible to tap a DSO, wide fovs are limited in size, etc.