Many people asked us the same question for Sky Map application for windows phone: How do we hide the constellation drawings (to avoid showing them on the  sky map)?

The answer is this:

"Please click ... on the bottom right of the screen and then select settings - display - (drag up) - constellation, show art off". Good luck and please let us if you have more questions.

We’ve just released a new update to SkyMap – 2.3. Here is the full list of changes that went in this update

• Improved graphics (you can see some before and after screenshots at the end of this post)
• We added a stars twinkling effect
• Fade in/out animation for the constellation art
• We added a button to the quick settings bar to toggle the point to sky mode
• Various performance and stability improvements
• Removed the 30 degrees limit for the compass compensation
• Various bug fixes
• Fixed a bug that caused the orientation lock to be lost after exiting the flashlight page
• Fixed a bug that caused the map manipulation to become sluggish after opening the APOD page
• Fixed a bug that made the last match in the search results list not to be selectable

We released the 2.2 update some time ago, but we haven’t got the chance to post the release notes. So here they are:

• Added an option to hide the Milky Way texture
• Live tiles with the sun, moon information
• Implemented search while in the point to sky mode; we now display some arrows to guide you to the object you searched for
• Improved About page
• Select the search text in the search page when opening the page
• Improved the compass calibration instructions by pointing to a post on our blog with more details about calibration
• Various bug fixes and performance improvements

Many users asked us about how to calibrate their windows phone compass. The following video shows how to properly execute the figure-8 calibration

If this doesn't work for you, we found an alternate calibration method - rotate the device on all its axes as presented in this video.

For more details about calibrating the compass sensor, you can take a look here

We’ve just published SkyMap 1.5, which is the first update that targets Windows Phone 7.5 (also known as mango). This update adds the most wanted feature – compass support!  It is the feature that we wanted to add right from the first version, but it just wasn’t possible on the previous versions of the Windows Phone OS.

How to use the compass

Please make sure that you are away from magnetic interferences. Large metal objects, power wires, magnets, speakers, etc. can affect the accuracy of the compass.

When you launch the new version, expand the application bar and click on the enable point to sky item. The first time you may get a Compass Calibration screen. Follow the instructions as indicated on the screen, until the status at the bottom says “Complete”.

From our experience, the compass calibration may take quite a while (especially when done the first time). Take your time, have patience and it will eventually get calibrated.

For more information about using the point to sky feature, please refer to the help page included in the application (you can find it in the application bar).

What’s new in SkyMap 1.5

• Compass support
• New sensors bar, that replaces the navigation bar in the point to sky mode
• Fast app switching
• The system tray respects the night mode theme (the system tray is setting is available only in the full version of the app)
• New night mode button in the quick settings bar, to make it easier to switch the night mode on and off
• The point to sky mode now supports the pinch to zoom gesture
• The show more/less stars now offers a wider range of values to better match the sky you see in your area
• Reorganized some of the items in the quick settings bar and the application bar

This update requires Windows Phone 7.5 (mango).

This update also includes the improvements we made in SkyMap 1.4 (which is also available for Windows Phone 7.0). You can find more information about the SkyMap 1.4 update here.

The main change in this update is the new look for the UI bars (setting bar, zoom bar, compass bar), which makes them similar to the standard application bar; they are now expandable and each button has a small description that explains what it does. We also made all buttons circular (instead of rectangular). All these changes should make the UI bars easier to use than before.

Here is the full list of changes in this update:

• Improved bars
• rounded buttons
• expandable
• each button has a label
• The Pluto fans should celebrate, as Pluto is now supported and displayed on the map
• We added a few new settings:
• Planets – show always (on by default) – when set, it shows planets always, no matter the zoom level
• Messier – shows always (off by default) – when set, it shows the Messier objects always, no matter the zoom level
• The labels for constellations in night mode now use a slightly different color
• Various performance improvements
• Fixed an issue that was happening when running on Windows Phone 7.5: clicking on the wikipedia link (in the object info pane) was loading an empty page

This update is available for both Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 7.5.

We've released version 1 and watched it getting downloaded by a lot of people. Thank you to downloading our app. We also have to thanks all the people who provided feedback and asked for new features.

With so much interest around our SkyMap application, we've decided to already start working on the next version.

But, what's going to be new in the next version of SkyMap?

Without getting in too much details, we already have a list of features postponed from the first version. Additional to that we get user requests by emails to our email address (support at denebsoft.com).

There are a couple of large categories of work items:

- various graphics improvements (for example, I've already added support for star colors on the website - so this change will be ported to the wp7 application)

- a new map visualization mode (the app has now a planisphere view mode - but we'll get prepared for the "point to the sky" feature as soon as Microsoft decides to expose compass API; even if that API is not exposed soon, depending on user requests, we may expose a "hybrid" solution of using a tilt + manual orientation of the map)

- additional settings and features (e.g. flip the map horizontally and vertically, draw celestial equator, etc)

- customizable live tile

The list is long and growing :) But the prioritization process is already in place.

Please send us your feedback and any feature requests that's important for you. We're dedicated to achieve a high customer satisfaction in our products. And thank you again for your interest in our SkyMap for Windows Phone 7 application!