PoleScope AR vs Sideris

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!

Sideris is a plate solver for astrophotography with simple gear: a camera, a lens or a telescope, and a star tracker without go-to functionality. You aim at a galaxy and take a test shot, but the camera's screen only shows stars. Is your target in the frame, or just outside it? Take a photo of the screen with your phone (or tablet), and Sideris tells you exactly where your camera is pointing. Your shot appears on the interactive sky map, next to the target you are aiming for, so you know which way to move. No go-to mount, no laptop and no internet needed at your dark site. HOW IT WORKS 1. Take a test shot with your camera. 2. Photograph the camera's screen with your phone, or import the photo itself. 3. Crop it, and Sideris solves it in seconds, right on your device. 4. See your photo on the sky map, and how far you are from your target. PLATE SOLVING, FULLY OFFLINE • Solving runs on your phone, so it works where there is no signal. • Most photos solve with nothing but the picture. If one struggles, add your sensor size, focal length or target to help it. • From camera lenses to telescopes of about 1,200 mm on a full-frame camera. • A solve that fails does not use up a free solve. FRAME YOUR SHOT Add your cameras and your lenses or telescopes, and the framing tool shows your exact field of view on the sky map. Turn the frame to match your camera and plan the composition before you shoot. MORE THAN 21,000 DEEP-SKY OBJECTS • Messier, Caldwell, Herschel 400, NGC and IC, plus Sharpless, Barnard and Lynds nebulae, planetary nebulae, supernova remnants, star clusters and galaxy groups. • Show the 500 best known, the 2,500 within reach of a camera lens, or all of them. • Search any object by name or number, filter by type, catalog, magnitude, size or altitude, and sort the list by what matters tonight. • Every object has an altitude curve for the night, and the 110 Messier objects have NASA and ESA photographs. AN INTERACTIVE SKY MAP • 364,000 stars, the planets, and the Moon in its real phase. • Point your phone at the sky and the map follows. Select an object, and arrows guide you to it. • Constellation lines, an equatorial or azimuthal grid, and the sky at any date and time. TOOLS FOR THE FIELD • Polar scope: a Polaris reticle for the polar alignment of your star tracker. • Night mode: turns on at sunset to protect your night vision, with an all-red option for the darkest sites. • Moon phase calendar: phase, illumination, moonrise and moonset for every night. • White screen: a dimmable panel for flat frames. • Location from the GPS, or chosen on an offline world map. LEARN IT ON REAL PHOTOS A guided tutorial walks you through two real solves on example photos, with an animation of the whole process. ONE PURCHASE, NO SUBSCRIPTION Your first 10 solves are free. After that, a single one-time purchase unlocks unlimited plate solving on all your devices. No subscription, no ads, no account. I built Sideris for my own nights under the stars, after spending too many hours trying to find my targets. I hope it can help you take beautiful photos as well. Clear skies!