# Nightsky Astrolabe — Learn\|Try navigate with stars

> Learn|Try navigate with stars (iPhone/iPad app by wing lun tong.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/nightsky-astrolabe/id1619471961 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [wing lun tong](https://appshunter.io/developer/1372766496)
- Category: Education, Navigation
- Price: Free
- Age rating: 4+
- Requires: iOS 15.0 · 13 MB
- Languages: English
- Released: 2022-06-09
- Data updated: 2026-05-15
- User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/nightsky-astrolabe/id1619471961/reviews.md

## What is Nightsky Astrolabe?

Ancient or medieval people used astrolabes along with the stars to navigate for long distance or maritime travels. This app tries to replicate those experience in the modern world but with much easier approach, thanks to today's mobile technologies. And you will be able to navigate in the open air even if GPS or internet is not available.

Features in this app to achieve the experiences:
*Built-in offline database of 1200 stars that are visible to naked eyes.
*Built-in offline database of the coordinates of 20k most populated cities'.
*Virtual night sky, including showing the positions of the stars and planets, 88 constellations and some famous asterisms you may need to recognize the stars or navigate.
*Basic star information, long-press on the star in the virtual night sky will pop up the information of the stars near by.
*Allows you to measure a star/planet's horizontal altitude with the phone's gyroscope. And also allows you to lock a certain direction like a compass, this way you could avoid the background magnetic noise in some circumstances.
*AR feature is an alternative and experimental feature for you to measure the star/planet's horizontal altitude or to lock a certain direction.
*Calculates your possible current Latitude based on the altitude result you got from the gyroscope.
*Latitude and Longitude sliders allow you to adjust your current location and see how the night sky rotate/scroll. You could compare the virtual night sky and the night sky you see above to get your rough longitude after you have calculated your latitude from the feature above. If you could see stars rising above the horizon, it's easier to get your longitude by comparing the stars right above the horizon.

In-App Purchase features:
* Remove all ads(and thus no more data collection from us and Google)
*Full access to offline location database and be able to reset your default location at anytime you like
*Location service from GPS/internet to get your Latitude/Longitude within seconds.(Convenient but not necessary, you learn how to find your coordinates without the access to internet or GPS)
*Location service to get your coordinates within seconds.(In-App Purchase)

While getting your coordinates from internet or GPS is not the objective of this app. There're occasions that you need to access your current coordinates quick and precisely.
Furthermore, during the daytime. You cannot navigate with the stars, but if you know your coordinates, you could figure out the sun's direction and lock the sun's direction so that the app could serve as a compass. The geographic north/south is slightly different than the magnetic north/south but it's more reliable. Because sometimes the background magnetic noise could more or less offset the direction.

**Offline location database licensed by simplemaps.com under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0


## Version history (last 3 releases)

### 1.02 — 2025-01-20

*Fixed a bug that crashes the app.
*Fixed a bug that removed the constellation lines when tapping a button on the toolbar.
*Performance improvement.

### 1.01 — 2022-06-10

New features:
*Built-in offline database of 1200 stars that are visible to naked eyes.
*Virtual night sky.
*Latitude/Longitude sliders.
*Using gyroscope or AR mode and the night sky to find your Latitude and possible Longitude.
*Built-in offline database of the coordinates of 20k most populated cities'.(In-App Purchase)
*Location Service to get your coordinates within seconds via internet/GPS.(In-App Purchase)

### 1.0 — 2022-06-09

No release notes.

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## More apps by wing lun tong

- [Digital Mala](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/digital-mala/id1372766497)
- [Oriental FortuneTeller](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/oriental-fortuneteller/id1449859137)
- [Fengshui FortuneTeller](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/fengshui-fortuneteller/id1481091931)
- [Psychic Swords AR](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/psychic-swords-ar/id1504083514)
- [Freekick Academia](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/freekick-academia/id1570374926)
- [Ecliptic Compass](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/ecliptic-compass/id1584943153)

All apps by wing lun tong: https://appshunter.io/developer/1372766496

## Related topics

[night sky sextant](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/night-sky-sextant) · [sextant](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/sextant)

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*Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-05-15.*