Comparison

Space Telescope App vs Ishigaki Star Guide

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Space Telescope App

Explore the universe with real-time updates and stunning visuals from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope. Engage with expert insights, join community discussions, and test your knowledge with interactive quizzes. Discover distant galaxies and unlock the secrets of the early universe.

Highlights
  • Live mission updates
  • Breathtaking image gallery
  • Expert Q&A with astronomers
  • Community discussions
  • Interactive space quizzes
  • 3D solar system explorer
  • Exclusive wallpapers
Features
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Space Telescope is an astronomy app for people who actually go outside and look up. See what the James Webb Space Telescope is observing right now. Decide whether tonight is worth staying out for. Catch the next visible ISS pass over your own location, and follow the rocket launches coming up. WHAT WEBB IS LOOKING AT, RIGHT NOW Webb's current target, science category, proposal, instruments and scheduled times, refreshed every five minutes while the view is open. Tap through to the proposal or the full observation schedule. A REAL PLAN FOR METEOR NIGHT Most meteor apps hand you a peak date. This one tells you what you will actually see. Set your location and how dark your sky is, and get an honest meteors-per-hour range, the best viewing window, where to look, how much the Moon will wash out, and what 30, 60 or 90 minutes outside is likely to be worth. Two alerts that matter: a heads-up the evening before, and a nudge when your window opens. Cloud cover is not included, so check the weather before you commit. THE ISS, OVER YOUR HOUSE Live position, altitude, velocity and orbit, plus crew, expeditions, dockings and visiting vehicles. Seven days of passes for your location with quality, direction, peak elevation and duration - set a 10-minute alert or drop the pass straight into your calendar. LAUNCH DAY Upcoming launches with live countdowns, status, provider, rocket, pad, launch window and webcast link. One tap for a reminder 15 minutes before liftoff. GALLERIES WORTH SCROLLING Imagery and mission guides for James Webb, Hubble, Chandra, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, Artemis, Mars and the ISS. Follow Roman's countdown, instruments and journey to L2. Pinch to zoom, save, share, like and comment. Turn on alerts only for the galleries you care about. PICTURE OF THE DAY NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day, image or video, with the full expert explanation and an optional daily alert. AND WHEN YOU WANT MORE - Tonight Sky: sunrise, sunset, Moon phase, illumination and twilight - Space Weather: Kp index, solar wind, aurora probability and active alerts - Cosmic Calendar: meteor showers, eclipses and other sky events - Exoplanets: discovery method and year, distance, orbit, mass, radius, temperature, host star and habitable-zone marker - Community astrophotography: post your own shots with gear and conditions - Space wallpapers for your phone - Quizzes, points, levels and global leaderboards - Ask an Astronomer, and live chat rooms in 10 languages - Full interface in English and Spanish PREMIUM Space Telescope is free, with ads. Premium removes every ad, unlocks the premium wallpaper collection and adds a gold avatar ring. Choose a monthly or annual subscription, or pay once for lifetime access, which also grants 1,000,000 points and Diamond level straight away. Subscriptions are charged to your Apple Account and renew automatically unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24 hours before the current period ends. Manage or cancel in your Apple Account settings. Whether you follow Webb every day, plan a Perseids or Geminids watch, photograph the night sky, teach astronomy, or just want to know when the ISS will cross overhead, Space Telescope keeps the useful details in one place. Space Telescope is an independent astronomy app and is not affiliated with or endorsed by NASA, ESA, STScI, SpaceX or any launch provider. Data and imagery are credited to their respective sources. Privacy policy: https://jameswebbtracker.com/privacy-policy Terms of use (Apple standard EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

Ishigaki Star Guide

Features
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Hold your phone up to the night sky and the stars in front of you appear on screen, named. A star guide built for one sky: Ishigaki Island, Okinawa. Ishigaki sits at 24.6 degrees north. From here the Southern Cross clears the horizon from winter dawns to spring evenings, a sight never seen from mainland Japan. POINT AND FIND AR mode draws constellation lines and star names over the live camera view, so the screen matches the sky above you; with the camera off it works as a plain chart. Only the constellation at the centre of your view lights up, the others fade back. 5,070 stars down to magnitude 6.0, the naked-eye limit, with lines for all 88 constellations. THE SOUTHERN CROSS, WITH TIMES Search for the Southern Cross: if it is up, an arrow at the edge of the screen guides you as you turn towards it; if not, the time machine jumps to the next time it will be. Check tonight's sky before you go outside. STAR NAMES FROM THE YAEYAMA ISLANDS Antares is Beecha-bushi. The Pleiades are Muri-ga-bushi. Polaris is Ninufa-bushi. The Milky Way is Tingara. Tap a star to see the Yaeyama name beside the modern one, with the story attached. Search "Haimuru-bushi" and the Southern Cross comes up. FIND THE CONSTELLATIONS AND COLLECT THEM Follow the arrow until the constellation is in front of you, hold it there, and tap "Found it" to record it in your book. A guide character then talks about that constellation and suggests a nearby one you have not found yet, arrow ready. Eighty-one constellations are reachable from Ishigaki; the ones that barely clear the horizon, like the Southern Cross at 8 degrees, rank as legendary. Records only count at night at the real current time, so the book holds only what you actually looked at. GUIDED PROGRAMMES, SPOKEN Like a planetarium show, a guided programme walks you through the sky one constellation at a time. "Yaeyama Winter Sky: An Introduction" is free: on nights from December to February it takes you from Orion to the Pleiades, the Winter Triangle and Canopus low over the sea, narrated in the unhurried voice of an island elder, so you can keep looking up. Every description card can also be read aloud. More themed programmes will follow. WILL IT BE CLEAR TONIGHT? - Sky Score: cloud, moonlight, humidity, visibility, rain and pressure scored out of 100, with the best hour highlighted (needs a connection) - Tonight's Highlights: end of twilight, moonrise and moonset, the moonless dark window, the Southern Cross transit, active showers - Moon Calendar: a month of phases at a glance FINDING DARK SKY Thirty observing spots around Ishigaki and the Yaeyama Islands, each with a Bortle darkness rating and distance from you, with town lights drawn on the map. Tap one for directions. ALSO INCLUDED - Time machine: step by second to year, or play time forward and watch the sky turn - Deep sky: 19 objects including Omega Centauri, Andromeda and the Orion Nebula - A Milky Way drawn from measured isophote data, Sagittarius bulge and Great Rift included - Meteors from the active shower's radiant at a realistic rate - Sound effects and a gentle haptic tap when you find a constellation - Five languages: Japanese, English, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), Korean MADE BY A STARGAZING GUIDE OF TEN YEARS Hoshihaku, Inc. has run the Nagareboshi-no-oka stargazing tour on Ishigaki for ten years and guided over 60,000 visitors. The explanations are the answers we give guests in the field. PRIVACY - No account, no sign-up, no name or email to enter anywhere - No advertising, no analytics, no tracking - Settings and your collection stay on your device - Coordinates are sent only to fetch the weather forecast, and are not stored - The camera draws the AR background only; nothing is photographed, saved or sent - The microphone is never used Everything but the weather-based Sky Score works offline, guided programmes included. Bearings come from the magnetometer, which reads inaccurately inside a vehicle or near steel.

Screenshots

Space Telescope App4 screens
Ishigaki Star Guide4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Ishigaki Star Guide at none against Space Telescope App's 4. Ishigaki Star Guide also leads on ads (none vs shown). On price, device support and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Space Telescope App sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month. Ishigaki Star Guide asks for nothing beyond the download.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
Space Telescope App versus Ishigaki Star Guide: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSpace Telescope AppIshigaki Star Guide
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.1 (31 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews40.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings31 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 10 days—
AdsYesNo — better
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchases—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPod
Requires iOS15.0 — better15.1
Further details — not scored
Size104 MB32 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperKAKHA GIORGASHVILInobunari arakaki

In-app purchases

4 purchases

Space Telescope App

Subscriptions2
  • Monthly Ad-Free Plan$4.991 Month
  • Ad-Free Annual Access$29.991 Year
One-time2
  • Premium$2.99
  • Buy 1M Points$99.99
None

Ishigaki Star Guide

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Space Telescope App free?
Space Telescope App is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Ishigaki Star Guide free?
Ishigaki Star Guide is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Space Telescope App or Ishigaki Star Guide have ads?
Space Telescope App shows ads; Ishigaki Star Guide does not.

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