# Star Stacker — Create star trail images

> App for creating star trail images and time-lapse videos from photo sequences. (iPhone/iPad app by michael webb.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/star-stacker/id1549693927 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [michael webb](https://appshunter.io/developer/622398499)
- Category: Photo & Video, Graphics & Design
- Price: $3.99
- Rating: 4.30/5 from 95 App Store ratings · 64 written reviews indexed
- Age rating: 4+
- Requires: iOS 16.0 · 4 MB
- Languages: American English
- Released: 2021-03-01
- Data updated: 2026-08-27
- Monetization: free
- User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/star-stacker/id1549693927/reviews.md

## What is Star Stacker?

Star Stacker allows you to import a sequence of star photos taken throughout the night and turn them into star trail images or a time lapse video.

After importing you can create the images and/or a time-lapse video with a few different effects.

- Full trails - every star at full brightness
- Faded trails - Stars get brighter as the process runs
- Shooting star - Like faded trails but the last image is brighter than any previous giving a shooting star effect
- Javelin - Both ends of the trail are faded
- Warp mode - zooms into the image stack slowly creating a warped effect. This will also affect the foreground so post processing may be required if the images have the foreground included.

You can also choose to save a video of the time-lapse based on the options used for the image stacking.

Can import images from your photos app. RAW files that have been recently imported from an SD card reader, may take a few minutes before the full resolution files are available.

There are resolution limits depending on the device being used and the memory it has:
- 6gb - 62mp
- 5gb - 62mp
- 4gb - 62mp
- 3gb - 42mp
- 2gb - 30mp

## Key features

- Create star trail images
- Generate time-lapse videos
- Full trails effect
- Faded trails effect
- Shooting star effect
- Warp mode effect
- Import photos from gallery

## Chart rankings

- #153 in Top Paid · Photo & Video (US App Store)

## Recent user reviews (10 of 64)

All indexed reviews: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/star-stacker/id1549693927/reviews.md

### 1/5 — $5 not worth it

*2026-08-12*

Uploaded pics and tried to stack and every time I push start. The app just crashes.

### 4/5 — 看不懂，但好用

*2026-07-14*

英文版看不懂，但APP很好用，刚进来甚至不知道怎么退出去，但堆栈很好用，之前的人进不去应该是设备问题

### 5/5 — Excellent

*2026-06-07*

Great app, really easy to use and great results.

### 1/5 — Keeps shutting down

*2026-05-18*

Attempting to use the stacker on an iPhone 13 Pro Max. App continues to shutdown when you begin to stack. Not many options out there for an iPhone to stack.

### 5/5 — honestly best of its kind

*2026-02-25*

Skip using pc to stacking, this works much better for video. Would be good to have the option of exporting live photo.

### 5/5 — I Use This App to Teach My Students!

*2025-12-19*

I teach Milky Way and Landscape photography on my western workshops, and find this to be the best app for producing star trails images. It’s all the most versatile app! Hoping it remains available to my students!

### 4/5 — Good and useful

*2025-12-05, version 3.0*

The app is good and useful especially the video import and export part. Reason why I put only 4 star because the help info to explain different options of stacking is missing. Also the speed of stacking is slow as compared with other star stacking apps.

### 5/5 — Muito bom

*2025-12-04*

Adorei o aplicativo, uma das funções que me fizeram baixar ele é que ele faz o empilhamento de um vídeo, então eu posso usar o app nativo do iPhone para fazer um time lapse e depois empilhar ele!

### 5/5 — Easy to use and excellent quality

*2025-10-19*

One of the best apps I’ve used Easy to stack with a few clicks and well designed layouts 🙏 highly recommended

### 5/5 — Simple Program without much documentation

*2025-06-28*

The program seems to have little to no documentation on use and or file formats it can work with. It stacked almost 300 jpegs, but gave me no options as to what I could do to improve the blend mode or appearance of the star trails. The program did stack the images, but Adobe Lightroom did most of the heavy lifting in prepping the images. I guessed that jpegs would work as it would not allow me to select raw files. I give it a 3 Star rating which is a C as it is about as basic as it gets in stacking and does not assist the user in getting more out of the program to achieve a archival finished image. I would only recommend this program for the hobbits who has low expectations and just wants to stack frames.

## Frequently asked questions about Star Stacker

### What does Star Stacker do?

Star Stacker allows you to import a sequence of star photos taken throughout the night and transform them into captivating star trail images or time-lapse videos. It offers several creative effects to enhance your celestial photography.

### What are the different effects available?

The app offers multiple effects including 'Full trails' for maximum brightness, 'Faded trails' where stars gradually brighten, 'Shooting star' for a dynamic effect, 'Javelin' with faded trail ends, and 'Warp mode' to create a zooming effect.

### How much does Star Stacker cost?

Based on the provided information, Star Stacker is available for free and does not have in-app purchases or advertisements.

### What devices is Star Stacker compatible with?

The app is designed for mobile devices. There are resolution limits based on the device's RAM, with higher RAM devices supporting up to 62MP resolutions.

### What are common use cases for Star Stacker?

Common use cases include creating artistic star trail images for social media or prints, generating time-lapse videos of the night sky's movement, and exploring creative visual effects for astrophotography.

## Version history (last 5 releases)

### 4.02 — 2026-08-20

4.02
* Device and settings details can now be optionally included within messages to me via Email or WhatsApp. 

4.0
* Image rendering now uses the GPU where possible resulting in a 3x improvement in speed.
* Shooting Star mode has been overhauled and now has a much more prominent leading star.

I would be very grateful if you could leave a review/rating and if you have any feedback, please contact me via email which can be found on the Info page within the app.

### 4.01 — 2026-08-17

* Image rendering now uses the GPU where possible resulting in a 3x improvement in speed.
* Shooting Star mode has been overhauled and now has a much more prominent leading star.

I would be very grateful if you could leave a review/rating and if you have any feedback, please contact me via email which can be found on the Info page within the app.

### 4.0 — 2026-07-06

* Image rending now uses the GPU where possible resulting in a 3x improvement in speed.
* Shooting Star mode has been overhauled and now has a much more prominent leading star.

I would be very grateful if you could leave a review/rating and if you have any feedback, please contact me via email which can be found on the Info page within the app.

### 3.0 — 2025-07-28

* You can now import time lapse videos of stars moving through the night sky into the app to create a new star trail image or star trail video.
* New design.

I would be very grateful if you could leave a review/rating and if you have any feedback, please contact me via email which can be found on the Info page within the app.

### 2.0 — 2022-12-25

* New trail style: Javelin! Both ends of each star trail are faded.
* There was a bug where some longer videos would be corrupted. This is now fixed.
* Minor design changes

I would be very grateful if you could leave a review/rating and if you have any feedback, please contact me via email which can be found on the Info page within the app.

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## More apps by michael webb

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All apps by michael webb: https://appshunter.io/developer/622398499

## Related topics

[image stacker](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/image-stacker) · [photo stacker](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/photo-stacker)

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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 2026-08-27.*