Otherwise called “New Zealand.” This is above Fox Glacier in a helicopter. Tough job! When watching The Hobbit, it was easy to see why they chose this area for filming. There’s a B&B in the North Island with an observatory that is just calling for an “inspection.”

I have received a some of emails regarding the latest release of Distant Suns(max) causing occasional crashes on startup.  I have found one possible problem on iPads running with pre-iOS 5 installations. So you can fix it by upgrading. If that doesn’t work it might be something else, so contact us at here, and report what version of iOS and device you are using.

Eclipse Day! Finally here! My very first total eclipse. Many in our group have seen 5 or more. My roommate is on his 7th. I never thought much of going halfway around the world to see something that lasted in this case, a mere 2 minutes, 9 seconds. People who do this are called “eclipse chasers”. But finally had some sense knocked into me when I realized that the eclipse is just a part of an otherwise fascinating journey. Each spot in the world...

Hi All, your intrepid app author here now on station in Cairns along the north coast of Australia (inhabited by an entire population of former convicts not to mention some newcomers trying to escape forthcoming confiscatory tax policies of Washington… (but I digress)… for Wednesday’s sunrise total solar eclipse. I do the dirty work so you don’t have to. Consider it really good QA as I need to, uh, “test”...

It looks like  some people have been blocked from getting Distant Suns(max) from Amazon’s appstore even if they have the Kindle Fire. They’re getting a message that the app is incompatible with their device. I have a support ticket filed with Amazon, so hope to get this fixed up shortly. The classic version seems ok though.

25 years ago, while working at the NASA Ames Research Center, I got the idea to create an astronomy program for computer users. It started out as a 17 line BASIC program and I’ve been polishing it up ever since. Thanks to you, Distant Suns has become one of the longest-lived, continually published, consumer software titles still on the market, bested only by products like Windows, Microsoft Word, and Broderbund’s Print Shop. I want...