# Star Archive — Visual astronomy companion > Visual astronomy companion (iPhone/iPad app by Kyungil Myung.) - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/star-archive/id6784481682 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`) - Developer: [Kyungil Myung](https://appshunter.io/developer/6784481684) - Category: Education - Price: Free - Age rating: 4+ - Requires: iOS 15.1 · 105 MB - Languages: American English - Released: 2026-07-09 - Data updated: 2026-08-21 - User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/star-archive/id6784481682/reviews.md ## What is Star Archive? What should I look at tonight? Star Archive picks objects your aperture can actually show under your site's sky — 1,272 objects judged in advance, so you don't drive out and find nothing there. This is an app for visual astronomy — for people who look through a telescope or binoculars with their own eyes. Plan a session, read an observing guide for each object, and keep a logbook: it all flows in one line. TONIGHT'S TARGETS, CHOSEN FOR YOU · Matched to your aperture (binoculars to large Dobsonians) and your site's sky darkness. · Choose the depth — a showpiece night, an easy stroll, or a deep dive. · Narrow by object type: galaxies only, no double stars, and so on. · Turn a recommendation straight into tonight's plan, or use it to fill an observing list. ONE UNBROKEN NIGHT · Plan — gather tonight's objects, sorted by hour or by constellation, with rise, transit and set times, altitude and direction, and the Moon's phase. · At the eyepiece — move object to object, tick what you saw, leave ratings and notes. Notes can be dictated by voice. · Wrap-up — enter the night's conditions once (seeing, transparency, limiting magnitude, site) and they are written into every log of that night. · Logbook — revisit by night, or by object. OBJECTS AND VISUAL GUIDES · 16,000+ objects — Messier, Caldwell, Herschel 400, NGC/IC, double and variable stars, asterisms, compact galaxy groups, and the solar system. · 2,400+ visual observing guides — how to star-hop to it, what shows at binocular, small, medium and large apertures, and advice on magnification and filters. · 4,600+ observing checkpoints — questions such as "can you see the bright core?" Rate them and compare with your past self next time. OBSERVING LISTS · Messier 110, Caldwell, Herschel 400, 1,001 Celestial Wonders, seasonal double stars, Hickson compact groups, and more. · Build your own lists, group them into folders, and watch your progress on each. · Make a star-walk route from several objects; add it to a plan and the members follow in order at the eyepiece. NIGHT MODE THAT PROTECTS YOUR DARK ADAPTATION · The whole screen turns red, with its own brightness control. Photos and sketches get a red veil too. · Shake the phone to toggle it. After sunset the app switches to a dark screen on its own. STAR CHARTS · A built-in chart with more than 130,000 stars shows your planned objects among the constellations. · Works with SkySafari and Stellarium — aim at an object with one button, or send tonight's list to be highlighted on the chart. SKETCHES AND KEEPING RECORDS · Attach your own sketches to an object and gather them into albums. · Move logs, lists and sketches in and out as spreadsheets, and carry everything to a new phone with a full backup. ALSO · Tonight's cloud cover by the hour, with temperature, humidity and wind. · Planets, dwarf planets and asteroids in real time — position, rise and set, phase, next opposition or conjunction, and Jupiter's moon events. · Korean, English and Japanese. Free. No ads, no purchases, no sign-up. Everything is stored on your device and never sent to a server (weather is the one exception). Location is used only to compute rise, set and altitude — and the app works from your saved site if you leave it off. Made by one hobbyist observer. Tell me what's missing or wrong and I'll fix it. ## Version history (last 5 releases) ### 1.3.0 — 2026-08-15 Rate how each object actually looked - Visibility, 1-5 stars - Tap the seen check in your plan or during a session and five stars appear for a moment: 1 'found but not seen' to 5 'clearly seen'. Skipping is fine. - You can also rate in the log editor, and ratings travel with your logs to and from the web (starnotearchive.com). - Objects that got away (1-2 stars) and ones marked for revisit gather in 'Objects to meet again': tonight's risers first, one tap to add to a plan. The Status screen, redesigned - A lifetime summary up top: years observing, logs, objects, nights, sketches. - This month's activity with change vs last month and your last observing date; the 12-month chart folds away. - Tap 'Unobserved N' on a checklist to jump straight to that list's unobserved objects. - Visibility and impression star counts share one row with a toggle. - My observing style: favorite sites and gear, what you've observed by type, your constellation footprint (out of 88), and your darkest night. - Every section folds, and the screen remembers how you left it. Plus small fixes and polish. ### 1.1.0 — 2026-08-13 ■ Carry on, on a bigger screen — starnotearchive.com · Link your phone and pick exactly what to send or fetch — logs, sketches, observing lists, plans, object groups. · On a PC, sort out hundreds of entries in a spreadsheet at once, upload them, and pull them back down to the phone. · Linking takes one six-digit code. Leave it unlinked and every feature still works. ■ Also · Objects you add to a plan settle into the hour you will actually see them, and that layout is saved. · The scope and eyepiece you chose while planning carry into the observing screen. · Dictated notes no longer cut off when you pause to think. · Session logs can be sorted by the time you observed. · A plan name added later now saves properly. ### 1.0.4 — 2026-07-31 A new way to pick tonight's targets. • Recommendations now match your aperture and your site's sky darkness — 1,272 objects judged in advance. • Choose observing depth (showpiece / easy stroll / deep dive) and object types. • Fill an observing list straight from the recommendations. Also • Zoom eyepieces, with a focal-length dial • Gear now carries over between the plan and the observing screen • Catalogue fixes — about 6,800 wrong magnitudes corrected • 102 star-walk routes added • Updated help and many small fixes ### 1.0.2 — 2026-07-18 • Tonight's clouds — hourly low/mid/high cloud forecast on Home; tap for daily details (temp·humidity·wind) and a clear-hours verdict, with Windy link • Star walk courses — put an object group in your plan, walk its members in order, and earn a finisher's stamp • Unified object picker — one search-and-filter screen for adding objects to logs, sketches, groups and lists • In-app guides — four topic walkthroughs with screenshots, plus a detailed star chart app (SkySafari) guide • Polish — wrap-up save buttons, night mode colors, and more ### 1.0.1 — 2026-07-11 Changed how object names are displayed — fixed overly long names caused by duplicate nicknames Improved display on large screens (iPad, etc.) --- *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 2026-08-21.*