SkySafari vs AsterScope

SkySafari 8 is a powerful planetarium that fits in your pocket, puts the universe at your fingertips, and is incredibly easy to use! Simply hold your device to the sky and quickly locate comets, planets, constellations, satellites, and millions of stars and deep sky objects. Whether you are a beginner or a longtime astronomy enthusiast, SkySafari 8 is your perfect stargazing companion, packed with interactive information, rich graphics, and a beautifully refined interface. What’s New in Version 8 + New Theme - A new look of the app with a fresh visual palette. + Image Gallery - Explore the universe through astrophotography. Import images directly from AstroBin. + Sky Tonight - Jump to the new Tonight section to see what’s visible in your sky right now. Expanded information has been designed to help plan your night and includes Moon & Sun info, calendar curations, and the best positioned deep sky and solar system objects. If you're new to SkySafari 8, here’s what you can do: + Point & Identify - Hold your device to the sky and instantly identify stars, constellations, planets, satellites, and more. The chart updates automatically with your movements. + OneSky - See what other users are observing in real-time. This feature highlights objects in the sky chart and indicates how many users are looking at them. + Orbit Mode - Lift off from Earth and travel to the planets, moons, and stars. + Guided Audio Tours - Listen to more than four hours of audio narration to learn the history, mythology, and science of the heavens. + Pronunciation Guide - Learn how to correctly pronounce the names of hundreds of celestial objects, from stars to constellations and planets. + Simulate the Sky - See an eclipse in the past or future! Simulate the night sky from anywhere on Earth many years backward or forward in time. + Night Vision - Preserve your eyesight after dark. SkySafari Premium Subscription Unlock amazing features with the optional Premium Subscription, including: + Massive Database - Access a massive deep sky database. + Custom Image Import - Upload and manage your own astrophotography images in the Image Gallery and show them in the sky chart. + Enhanced Tools - Access curated news, events, connected stargazing features, a light pollution map, and more. For telescope control and even more advanced features, check out SkySafari 8 Plus and SkySafari 8 Pro! Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://www.livesky.com/privacy.html

AsterScope is the transparent stargazing planner built for real observers — from first-time binocular users to seasoned deep-sky hunters. Instead of dumping a wall of coordinates, it answers the question you actually care about: "Is tonight worth setting up?" EXPLAINABLE TONIGHT PLAN Every plan is scored on five independent pillars — Sky clarity, Moon friendliness, Dark hours, Gear fit, and Target quality — and visualized as a five-axis radar chart. You see at a glance which pillar is dragging the night down, plus a one-tap remediation hint ("Switch to planets tonight, deep-sky is compromised by the bright Moon"). TRENDING SKY EVENTS A built-in event ranker surfaces what is actually worth chasing this week — meteor peaks, lunar phases, planetary conjunctions, eclipses, ISS passes — ordered by visibility from your location, not by hype. COMMUNITY HOTSPOTS (OPTIONAL) See where stargazers around the world are heading right now. AsterScope quietly listens to public posts on Mastodon and Bluesky, extracts location signals for US, EU, and Japan dark-sky sites, and shows a ranked hotspot list. Tap any hotspot to open the original post in your browser — no third-party text is rendered inside the app. INTERACTIVE SKY CHART Real-time gnomonic projection backed by precise ephemeris. Tap any object for rise/set times, an altitude graph, and imaging suitability. Horizon-up mode mirrors what you see in the eyepiece. AR SKY OVERLAY Point your phone at the sky and AsterScope labels stars, planets, and deep-sky objects in real time. Markers stay pinned to celestial positions as you pan across the night. DARK-SKY FINDER Browse nearby dark-sky sites with Bortle ratings, compare light pollution, and plan trips to the best location within driving distance. OBSERVATION LOGBOOK Pin must-see objects to a Tonight List, work through them during the session, and keep a searchable log with year reports and CSV / Markdown export. BUILT FOR READABILITY Full Dynamic Type support across plans, events, logs, AR hints, and the dark-sky map — text scales cleanly with your iOS text size, including the larger accessibility sizes, with no clipping or overlap. WHAT YOUR APP PURCHASE INCLUDES The paid download already unlocks Tonight Score, the explainable plan, sky chart, AR overlay, dark-sky finder, observation log, weather forecasts, trending sky events, community hotspots, and the Core catalog (planets, the Moon, bright stars, and popular Messier objects). No subscription. No auto-renewal. OPTIONAL ONE-TIME CATALOG UPGRADES For deep-sky observers who want the long tail, two non-consumable, one-time upgrades extend catalog depth only: - Catalog Upgrade — adds Extended and Pro Deep Sky catalogs to planning, search, AR, and offline packs. - Ad-Free Catalog Upgrade — same catalogs, with no third-party ads. Neither is required to use the app. PRIVACY AsterScope uses coarse location only. Coordinates are rounded to a roughly 1 km grid before any third-party request. Apple WeatherKit, Open-Meteo, 7Timer ASTRO, and NASA GIBS receive only the rounded coordinates needed for forecasts and imagery. The community hotspot feature reads only public posts via official public endpoints (Mastodon, Bluesky), aggregates them on-device, and never uploads your location or identity. We do not collect or sell personal data. Full policy: https://qixiaobing54673.github.io/asterscope-site/privacy.html AsterScope works offline for core sky calculations. An internet connection is needed for weather, dark-sky site information, image fetching, trending events, and community hotspots.