Tap an app and peer at Pluto

LOS ANGELES — Want to keep up with Tuesday's New Horizons space voyage by Pluto? There's an app for that.

The best of the breed is the New Horizons app from Johns Hopkins University, (free, Apple.) The app is a one-stop shop to read up on the Pluto mission, with real and artist-rendered images and videos from the NASA newsroom.

For the first time, we'll get to see real photographs of the what the planet Pluto indeed looks like. In the past, we've been eyeing artist renderings.

(For Android users, try Pluto Safari, an interactive guide to the mission. )

The New Horizons app actually has much of the information contained on the official NASA New Horizons website — https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/index.html but the app itself is more compact and easier to navigate.

Live video isn't available because of the distance between planets, but it does offer a simulated view of what we're seeing, with a preview of what the flypast will look like.

There's also a NASA desktop app set up, Eyes on Pluto, for Windows and Mac computers, http://eyes.jpl.nasa.gov/eyes-on-pluto.html.

The app has "simulated data from the New Horizons flight team you can ride on-board the spacecraft."

NASA is expected to fly by Pluto early morning Tuesday, East Coast time.