Star Archive vs PoleScope AR

An app for visual astronomy — observing through a telescope or binoculars with your own eyes. · Sky chart — 5.5 million stars with your own fields of view overlaid, opened from plans, observing and object pages. · Plan and recommend — only what your aperture can show under your site's sky (1,272 objects judged in advance), placed into hour slots, rehearsed on the chart. · Observe and record — step through objects on the chart, check, rate and write; review by night or by object. ■ A built-in sky chart · About 5.5 million stars to 13th magnitude and 16,000+ deep-sky objects. Drag and pinch anywhere. · Sky as it looks right now (zenith up) or north up — one tap on the compass at top left. · Build fields of view from your telescope, eyepieces and finder and overlay several at once. Plan objects as rings, observed ones checked. · Open the chart from a plan, the observing screen or an object page, and come straight back. ■ One unbroken night · Plan — added objects settle into hour slots on their own; drag to rearrange. Tap an object for its altitude curve and suggested magnification right there. · Rehearsal — walk the night on the chart before you leave. Course editing handles hour slots, order and start stars on one screen. · Observing — step through objects on the chart, check them off, rate and write notes. Dictate by voice. · Records — enter the night's conditions once, then review by night or by object. Long-term plans spanning months, too. ■ Data and learning · 2,400+ visual guides — how to find it and what each aperture shows. 4,600+ observing points to rate. · Lists such as Messier, Caldwell, Herschel 400 and 1001, plus your own lists and courses. · Star hopping with 126 routes (using the chart's field-of-view settings); Messier marathon prep and a 110-object night. ■ Also Night mode (red screen, shake to toggle, automatic after sunset) · six themes · sketch albums · eyepiece-view simulator · tonight's clouds and seeing · real-time planets · spreadsheets in and out, full backup · on a bigger screen at starnotearchive.com · Korean, English and Japanese. Free. No ads, no purchases. No account in the app; make a web account only if you want the website. Records stay on your phone; only what you send goes up to the web (site names visible only to you). With weather on, the forecast point's location is passed to the weather service. The 13th-magnitude star data downloads only when you ask. Made as a hobby by one observer.

PoleScope AR turns your iPhone into a polar-alignment scope for your telescope — and a beautiful almanac of the night sky's culture. It works 100% offline and makes zero network requests. — POLAR ALIGNMENT, IN AR — Point your phone at the sky and PoleScope AR overlays the exact position of the celestial pole using ARKit — no need to see Polaris, no compass calibration. Get your equatorial mount roughly aligned in seconds, then refine with the built-in drift-alignment helper for imaging-grade precision. — PLAN YOUR NIGHT — A one-tap observing planner ranks tonight's best deep-sky objects for your location, with altitude and magnitude. A coarse Bortle light-pollution estimate helps you judge the sky. — EXPLORE THE SKY ATLAS — Pan a live star map of bright stars, constellation lines, planets and deep-sky objects. Tap any object to see its data. — TODAY: THE SKY'S CULTURE — A daily card brings the 24 solar terms, traditional festivals, a poetic "star journal," and a situation-drama for your zodiac sign. — YOUR BIRTHDAY SKY — See the night sky exactly as it appeared at the moment and place you were born, and discover the lunar mansion the Sun was passing through that day. — POLESCOPE PRO (one-time unlock) — A single, non-subscription purchase unlocks the premium star-culture library: constellation and 28-lunar-mansion mythology, NASA / Hubble / Spitzer hero photos of famous stars, the full situation-drama theater, and high-resolution birthday-poster export & sharing. The entire alignment tool stays free forever. Purchases restore on all your devices. — PRIVACY — No accounts, no tracking, no analytics, no third-party SDKs. Your location is used only on-device for astronomical math and never leaves your phone. Clear skies!