The Ultimate Cosmic Companion For Your Star-Struck Kids! Have You Downloaded It Yet?

My son at 7 is quite the astronomy buff. He’s been fascinated with the stars and the moon ever since he could identify them. For his 6th birthday, we actually bought him a telescope that he takes up to the terrace every once in a while. But there are so many questions he has in that little head of his that have been difficult for me to explain – till now – I just downloaded the Cosmic Watch app. It was a complete OMG moment when he came back from school and I showed him the things this app could do. Needless to say, I haven’t had a chance to get close to the iPad all day.

The Story Behind Cosmic Watch

Eduardo Santana grew up in Gran Canaria, studied Visual Arts in Zürich and specialised in 3D, animation and projections. Markus Humbel is the concept and communication specialist behind Cosmic Watch. With these two at the helm, Cosmic Watch is indeed as ‘Swiss Made’ as you can get.

As a child, Eduardo Santana used to watch the sky for hours and always wondered why is the sky filled with different stars and why the moon changes it’s position every night. Pretty much the same questions which I’m sure you’ve faced from your own kids as they gaze up at the night sky.

Along with Markus Humbel, Eduardo Santana took up the challenge to make it easier for everyone to understand the universe around our little Earth. They figured there had to be a better and easier way. That’s when they created the Cosmic Watch as an educational tool to learn about the motion of the sky and about celestial navigation.

So, What Is The Cosmic Watch?

The Cosmic Watch is an interactive 3D tool. You can use it as a real-time world clock, time travel machine or an astro-lab. It gives you real-time view access to all the planets and stars that float around the Earth.

The Cosmic Watch App has three modes:

• World Clock: You can check on time across the world – up to 3 locations can be saved.
• Astronomy Mode: You can observe the planets near you and see them all move across the sky. Use this mode to discover the planets and constellations in your local sky. In combination with the time control you can find out the time of rising, transit and setting of the celestial bodies.
• Astrology: The astrology mode displays the planets with their ancient symbols in the zodiac signs, and allows the user to set a birthdate and view a natal chart. Pretty cool for people who are into astrology.
• It also has an in built Solar Eclipse Detector.
• What caught and held my children’s attention was the Time Travel Function.  The “time travel” function lets you move forwards or backwards through time at varying speeds. You can watch the sun rising and lighting up one hemisphere and whizzing past to disappear to the other side. You can trace movement of the planets and can pause at any point to see the exact configuration in the solar system at that point. To fast-forward the time is a mind-blowing experience. It’s like watching a time-lapse video.

Pricing & Where Can I Download It?

Cosmic Watch has a special pricing for the Indian market and comes with a tag of Rs 400. You can download the App here for iOS systems and here for Android.

Why Parents And Kids Will Love Cosmic Watch

• It’s quite child-friendly and kids can play around with the settings and find their location on Earth along with the current season, date and time using both a clock face and a digital watch display. The digital display makes it easy for them to read the numbers even if they don’t know how to read a clock.
• Learning about the orbiting of the Earth and the other planets in our Solar System is so much easier with the Cosmic Watch. The kids can see it all in real time and it will help them absorb information a lot faster. Isn’t the visual impact always higher than if you’re just reading or hearing about something?
• The geocentric view gives a wonderful illustration of why the path of the other planets is a retrograde motion as seen through our eyes.
• The beautiful 3D images can be rotated from side to side by just swiping across the screen.
• The kids can learn so much about the constellations in the sky. You can zoom in and out by pinching the screen. Try spotting Lyra the Harp or the Ursa Major. It can be a lot of fun and at the same time quite educational.
• It has a red dot on the side which lets you take screenshots and save the images. You can refer to these later when your child has a question.
• The product is reasonably priced considering the amazing experience it provides for your child.

What We Would Like To See

• The videos and instructions for the app are well explained, but it took a little while for the kids to understand what they’re looking at. A little more child-friendly, perhaps?
• It can get a little confusing with the different lines intersecting each other. For example, if you want to see the constellations, you should remove everything else from the setting otherwise, the kids will not be able to make out much.

Watch the video below to get a better understanding about the Cosmic Watch.