SkyCue vs Orrery

SkyCue is a beginner-first stargazing app for the moment when you look up and wonder what you are seeing. Point your iPhone at the night sky, let the app choose the centered object, and read one plain-English cue instead of opening a heavy astronomy encyclopedia. Made for campers, parents, walkers, and new observers: - Use Point Mode to identify a bright star or constellation area - Read one short explanation written for beginners - Browse a starter catalog of easy night-sky objects - See Tonight Quick Picks after unlocking - Save objects and recent identifications locally - Use a manual city instead of precise location if you prefer - Learn with bundled sky data, not live web pages or AI text - Home screen widget with the bright catalog stars above your horizon right now (medium size; extra-large size on iOS 27) - Sky objects in Spotlight search, plus a Shortcuts action to open the sky overhead SkyCue is intentionally narrow. It is not a full planetarium, astronomy news app, satellite tracker, telescope planner, or camera AR overlay. The widget projects the bundled star catalog for your location and does not show planet or Moon positions; above the horizon does not guarantee visibility in daylight or clouds. Location is optional and used only to calculate the visible sky. Saved objects stay on your device, and there is no account or cloud sync. The Lifetime Unlock adds the full v1 bright-object catalog, all constellation lines, complete beginner cues, Tonight Quick Picks, and saved objects. No subscription, no ads.

See the solar system as it really is — right now. Orrery draws every planet, moon and comet exactly where it is today, turning and tilted as it really is, ray-traced live on your iPhone. Spin a world under your finger, run time forward or back by centuries, and watch the planets move. EXPLORE • The Sun, eight planets, their moons, the dwarf planets, Vesta and Halley's Comet — placed from NASA JPL's data • Real surfaces from spacecraft maps: MESSENGER, Viking, Cassini, New Horizons and more • Saturn's rings, Earth's clouds and city lights, eclipses and moon shadows • A living Sun, with sunspots, flares and eruptions that follow the real solar cycle • Halley's Comet, tumbling as it really does, growing its coma and tails as it nears the Sun FLY THE MISSIONS Follow 18 spacecraft along their real paths — Voyager, Apollo 11, Artemis, Cassini, Juno, Perseverance, Parker Solar Probe, the James Webb Space Telescope and more — with the photographs they took. LOOK INSIDE Open up 16 worlds to see their cores, mantles and oceans, to scale. HEAR SPACE Real recordings from spacecraft: the Sun, Jupiter, Saturn, Earth's magnetic "chorus" and more. SKY ALERTS Eclipses, planets at their best, meteor showers and the view from Titan tonight — as gentle alerts, up to three a day and never at night, worked out on your iPhone. DARK SIDE A ship game among the worlds. Every world throws a long shadow away from the Sun, and a ship in one cannot be seen from afar, so hiding is the game: when a solar flare comes, get into a shadow. Five ships, three minutes, one life, against bots that fill the other seats. A training flight teaches the controls. It runs entirely on your iPhone, needs no account and sends nothing. Two ship colours come with Orrery Pro. YOUR BIRTHDAY SKY Tell Orrery the day you were born, once, and see your age on every planet, how far Earth has carried you round the Sun, and where the planets stood that day. Then travel to that day. The date stays on your iPhone. AND BEYOND • Earth's magnetic field, pressed by the solar wind • How the solar system travels through the galaxy, and the bubble that shields it • Stand on the Moon and Mars in 3D In English, Español, Português, Français, Русский, 中文 and O'zbekcha. ORRERY PRO Orrery is free to explore. The free plan shows a few ads, only at natural pauses after you finish something and never right after you open the app. A short video is optional and opens one locked item free for 30 minutes. Where the law asks, Orrery asks for your ad privacy choice before the first ad, and you can change it any time in Settings > Discover > Privacy choices. Orrery Pro takes every ad away and unlocks every mission, every interior, every sound, the 3D surfaces, the galaxy view, Earth's magnetic field, Ultra graphics and two Dark Side ship colours: yearly with a one-week free trial, monthly, or once for life. Payment is charged to your Apple Account at confirmation. Subscriptions renew automatically unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period; manage or cancel them in your App Store account settings. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://khushnid.github.io/orrery/privacy.html