# The Grand Orrery — A Solar System Field Guide

> A Solar System Field Guide (iPhone/iPad app by CRAIG ANTHONY PERKINS.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/the-grand-orrery/id6792144857 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [CRAIG ANTHONY PERKINS](https://appshunter.io/developer/6783205424)
- Category: Education, Reference
- Price: $2.99
- Age rating: 4+
- Requires: iOS 17.0 · 4 MB
- Languages: American English
- Released: 2026-07-23
- Data updated: 2026-08-01
- User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/the-grand-orrery/id6792144857/reviews.md

## What is The Grand Orrery?

No subscriptions. No ads. No accounts. The whole solar system. 

The Grand Orrery is a hand-built model of our solar system, drawn in the
style of an antique astronomical atlas and powered by a native Metal
renderer. Twenty-five worlds — the Sun, every planet, Pluto, and fifteen
notable moons — spin and orbit in real time. Tap any of them and the
camera sweeps you to its sunlit side while its field-guide dossier slides
up: measurements, atmosphere, notable moons, and the kind of margin notes
an astronomer would actually tell you at the eyepiece.

Every world's surface is generated on your phone — except Earth,
which wears NASA's own Blue Marble portrait — and every figure in every dossier was verified against NASA and
JPL references, with the sources one tap away.

- Pinch, drag, and fly through a living orrery rendered at up to 120 fps
- Field-guide dossiers for 25 worlds, checked against NASA and JPL
- The Grand Tour: sit back while the orrery visits each world in turn
- A quiet, generated ambient soundscape (leave it on or switch it off)
- Orbit lines, floating labels, adjustable time — from hours to years
  per second — and a pause button when you just want to look
- Sources for every world, cited in the app
- Works completely offline; collects nothing

Buy it once. Keep the solar system in your pocket.


## Version history (last 3 releases)

### 1.1.0 — 2026-07-31

The Grand Orrery is now built for iPad and Mac.

On iPad, the whole solar system fills the screen in both portrait and
landscape, with type and controls scaled for the larger canvas — and the
worlds now render at higher resolution, so close-ups of Mercury, the Moon
and the outer moons stay crisp.

On Mac, the app runs in its own resizable window with full-screen support,
a proper menu bar, and keyboard shortcuts — press Space to pause, the arrow
keys to change speed, and O, L or T to toggle orbits, labels or the Grand
Tour. Scroll to zoom in and out.

One purchase covers iPhone, iPad and Mac.

### 1.0.1 — 2026-07-30

Fixes the speed control disappearing behind a world's card in portrait.
The play/pause and rate slider now stay on screen while you read, so you
can speed up or slow down the system without closing the card first.
(Thank you to the user who wrote in about the slider.)

Closing a card is smoother too: the world now glides back to centre with
the same camera move that brought you in, instead of snapping.

### 1.0 — 2026-07-24

No release notes.

## More apps by CRAIG ANTHONY PERKINS

- [Hyperbloom](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/hyperbloom/id6783205422)
- [kama sona — learn toki pona](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/kama-sona-learn-toki-pona/id6787704545)
- [Sati — Everyday Mindfulness](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/sati-everyday-mindfulness/id6788493875)
- [RecallRadar: Personal Alerts](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/recallradar-personal-alerts/id6793210650)

All apps by CRAIG ANTHONY PERKINS: https://appshunter.io/developer/6783205424

---

*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 2026-08-01.*