Orbital Contact vs Astrelia
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side โ with what reviewers say about each.
Orbital Contact
Read full descriptionHide full description
Explore the universe โ from the science of the cosmos to the world's most documented UAP/UFO cases. Orbital Contact is a space exploration and science-outreach app for the endlessly curious. Learn how the universe works, track what's above you tonight, and dive into famous unexplained aerial cases โ all presented honestly, as documented accounts rather than proven claims. WHAT YOU'LL FIND - Daily astronomy โ NASA's Picture of the Day, space news, and upcoming rocket launches - Sky tracking โ see when the International Space Station passes over your location, plus celestial events - Interactive tools โ your weight and age on other planets, time dilation, and more - Mysteries of the cosmos โ accessible deep-dives into the universe's biggest open questions - UAP/UFO dossiers โ iconic documented cases (Roswell, Nimitz "Tic Tac," Rendlesham, and more), presented with their official explanations where they exist - Learn & play โ quizzes, a learning trail, achievements, and a passport to track your journey - Four languages โ English, Portuguese, Spanish, and French AN HONEST APPROACH Orbital Contact is educational and for entertainment. Historical cases and reports are presented as documented accounts, not as proven facts โ and the app does not claim extraterrestrial origin for any phenomenon. Calculations and visibility times are estimates. ORBITAL CONTACT PREMIUM Go further with a monthly subscription: - Unlock every mystery and UAP dossier - Remove ads - Celestial alerts โ get notified about events and ISS passes - Exclusive themes, advanced analysis, and more No account required. No sign-up, no login โ your data stays largely on your device. Look up. Stay curious. Privacy Policy: https://telegra.ph/Orbital-Contact--Privacy-Policy--Terms-06-21 Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Astrelia
Read full descriptionHide full description
Raise your phone toward the sky and Astrelia shows you what is actually up there: stars, planets, the Moon and the Sun, placed for your exact location and this exact instant. Tap anything and it tells you everything it knows. POINT AT THE SKY Around 8,900 naked-eye stars, sized and coloured the way the eye sees them. Constellation lines, the ecliptic with the live planets, and a Sun and Moon computed with topocentric parallax and atmospheric refraction, so they sit where you can genuinely see them. Pinch to zoom and more names appear. Tap any star to identify it. Scrub time twelve hours forward or back and watch the whole sky move. Aim at something bright and align, and the compass error that ruins most sky apps is cancelled out. TONIGHT One screen for what is happening: the Moon's phase, sunrise and sunset, which planets are up right now and which are below the horizon, meteor showers near their peak, and what is coming โ eclipses, oppositions, solstices, greatest elongations. All of it searched out of the live ephemeris, not read from a hardcoded list. NUMBERS THAT MEAN SOMETHING Every object opens into real astrophysics: distance, spectral class, temperature, luminosity, derived radius, orbital elements. Next to them, plain language โ the year the light you are looking at left that star, how many Suns it would take to match it, what you would weigh on that planet, where the star falls on the HR diagram, and a one-line biography of its life. Anything unfamiliar has a glossary entry a tap away. THE GALAXY MAP Leave Earth entirely and free-fly a 3D map built from real data: about 25,000 catalogued stars at their true distances, the Milky Way as its real barred spiral, and deep-sky landmarks at their real positions, distances and sizes. Twenty-seven nebulae are built from public-domain telescope photographs, so their shape and colour are the ones the telescope saw โ fly into them and they hold up in three dimensions. Fly to a star and its confirmed exoplanets are there, orbiting it. At the galactic centre, Sagittarius A* is rendered by tracing light through curved spacetime: the galaxy behind it genuinely bends around it. CONSTELLATIONS All 88 IAU constellations, plus asterisms, historical figures and cultural skies, each drawn over its real stars. Open any of them in 3D and the familiar shape falls apart into deep space, because a constellation is a line of sight rather than a thing. Astrelia computes all of it on your device from catalogs that ship inside the app. No account, no subscription, no ads, no tracking, and no network needed to use it. Every dataset, algorithm and image behind it is credited in About โ Sources. Astrelia has a sister app, Selenia, which reads the same real sky the astrological way.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Astrelia at none against Orbital Contact's 1. Astrelia also leads on ads (none vs shown). Orbital Contact's advantage is iOS requirement (16.4 vs 26.0). On price and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price ยท Rating ยท Positive reviews ยท Number of ratings ยท Update frequency ยท Ads ยท In-app purchases ยท Monetization ยท Best chart rank ยท Devices ยท Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Orbital Contact sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $4.99 per month. Astrelia asks for nothing beyond the download.
| Parameter | Orbital Contact | Astrelia |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Every 6 weeks | โ |
| Ads | Yes | No โ better |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No โ better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 16.4 โ better | 26.0 |
| Further details โ not scored | ||
| Size | 72 MB | 41 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Rafael Melo de Farias | Elysia Munoz |
In-app purchases
Orbital Contact
- Premium$4.991 Month
Astrelia
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Orbital Contact free?
Is Astrelia free?
Do Orbital Contact or Astrelia have ads?
Other comparisons















