System: Valve Index, HTC Vive & Oculus Rift
Price at Time Of Review: £1.69
Comfort Rating: Yellow (Mild Movement)
Genre: Tool/App, Educational
Input: Tracked Motion Controllers
Best Playing Position: Sitting, Standing
Multi-Player: No
Age Rating: PG
Description: Experience PlanetVRium, an interactive planetarium experience in Virtual Reality! PlanetVRium allows you to explore the stars, galaxies and nebulae visible in the night sky, and is a “must see” for all junior astronomers, young and old, or anyone with a curiosity and passion for the night sky.
Unlike other phone apps which show you constellations in the sky, PlanetVRium allows you to interact with the night sky, in VR. You can see all 8400 visible stars, in both the northern and southern hemispheres, all around you. You can rotate the night sky based on your latitude and time of year. See and explore all 88 constellations of the International Astronomical Union (IAU). You can point to and “shoot” any star to see detailed astronomical data for that star, including position (right ascension and declination), magnitude of brightness, distance in light years, and the name of the star where applicable.
Review: ‘PlanetVRium’ is pretty much what you might suspect it is. Yes, it is a planetarium style app in which you can learn a little bit about the stars, constellations and the rotation of the planets. While it is far from the best looking planetarium app (Homestar VR still holds that title) it does what it needs to do and you can learn a little bit about the night sky. I wish it has locational settings so you could see what the night sky is where you live and I do wish it had more educational /narration to go with all the images. But for just £1.69 you get a solid app that does what it needs to do and even has a small guided tour (with narration) of the movements of the plants which is a nice touch.
