AsterScope
Astronomy Planner & Sky Chart
$3.99 · In‑App Purchases · Designed for iPad. Not verified for macOS.
Plan better stargazing nights with live sky charts, dark-sky locations, celestial events, observing logs, and telescope-ready guidance.
AsterScope is the transparent stargazing planner built for real observers — from first-time binocular users to seasoned deep-sky hunters. Instead of dumping a wall of coordinates, it answers the question you actually care about: "Is tonight worth setting up?"
EXPLAINABLE TONIGHT PLAN
Every plan is scored on five independent pillars — Sky clarity, Moon friendliness, Dark hours, Gear fit, and Target quality — and visualized as a five-axis radar chart. You see at a glance which pillar is dragging the night down, plus a one-tap remediation hint ("Switch to planets tonight, deep-sky is compromised by the bright Moon").
TRENDING SKY EVENTS
A built-in event ranker surfaces what is actually worth chasing this week — meteor peaks, lunar phases, planetary conjunctions, eclipses, ISS passes — ordered by visibility from your location, not by hype.
COMMUNITY HOTSPOTS (OPTIONAL)
See where stargazers around the world are heading right now. AsterScope quietly listens to public posts on Mastodon and Bluesky, extracts location signals for US, EU, and Japan dark-sky sites, and shows a ranked hotspot list. Tap any hotspot to open the original post in your browser — no third-party text is rendered inside the app.
INTERACTIVE SKY CHART
Real-time gnomonic projection backed by precise ephemeris. Tap any object for rise/set times, an altitude graph, and imaging suitability. Horizon-up mode mirrors what you see in the eyepiece.
AR SKY OVERLAY
Point your phone at the sky and AsterScope labels stars, planets, and deep-sky objects in real time. Markers stay pinned to celestial positions as you pan across the night.
DARK-SKY FINDER
Browse nearby dark-sky sites with Bortle ratings, compare light pollution, and plan trips to the best location within driving distance.
OBSERVATION LOGBOOK
Pin must-see objects to a Tonight List, work through them during the session, and keep a searchable log with year reports and CSV / Markdown export.
BUILT FOR READABILITY
Full Dynamic Type support across plans, events, logs, AR hints, and the dark-sky map — text scales cleanly with your iOS text size, including the larger accessibility sizes, with no clipping or overlap.
WHAT YOUR APP PURCHASE INCLUDES
The paid download already unlocks Tonight Score, the explainable plan, sky chart, AR overlay, dark-sky finder, observation log, weather forecasts, trending sky events, community hotspots, and the Core catalog (planets, the Moon, bright stars, and popular Messier objects). No subscription. No auto-renewal.
OPTIONAL ONE-TIME CATALOG UPGRADES
For deep-sky observers who want the long tail, two non-consumable, one-time upgrades extend catalog depth only:
- Catalog Upgrade — adds Extended and Pro Deep Sky catalogs to planning, search, AR, and offline packs.
- Ad-Free Catalog Upgrade — same catalogs, with no third-party ads.
Neither is required to use the app.
PRIVACY
AsterScope uses coarse location only. Coordinates are rounded to a roughly 1 km grid before any third-party request. Apple WeatherKit, Open-Meteo, 7Timer ASTRO, and NASA GIBS receive only the rounded coordinates needed for forecasts and imagery. The community hotspot feature reads only public posts via official public endpoints (Mastodon, Bluesky), aggregates them on-device, and never uploads your location or identity. We do not collect or sell personal data. Full policy: https://qixiaobing54673.github.io/asterscope-site/privacy.html
AsterScope works offline for core sky calculations. An internet connection is needed for weather, dark-sky site information, image fetching, trending events, and community hotspots.
Ratings & Reviews
- This app hasn’t received enough ratings or reviews to display an overview.
What’s New in 1.2.1
• Meet the new Tonight Plan: clear, explainable stargazing guidance based on sky conditions, moonlight, dark hours, gear fit, and target quality.
• Explore an upgraded Sky Chart with a wider field of view, smoother device tracking, smarter labels, richer search, and faster rendering.
• Enjoy a more detailed Milky Way sky, improved target details, observing logs, and dark-sky planning tools.
• Discover richer celestial-event coverage for eclipses, meteor showers, planetary windows, ISS, and bright satellite passes.
• Improved location time zones, forecast reliability, date formatting, localization, and overall stability.
The developer, 红斌 戚, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Not Linked to You
The following data may be collected but it is not linked to your identity:
- Purchases
- Location
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More
Information
- Seller
- 红斌 戚
- Size
- 12.7 MB
- Category
- Reference
- Compatibility
Requires iOS 17.0 or later.
- iPhone
Requires iOS 17.0 or later. - iPad
Requires iPadOS 17.0 or later. - Mac
Requires macOS 14.0 or later and a Mac with Apple M1 chip or later. - Apple Vision
Requires visionOS 1.0 or later.
- iPhone
- Languages
English and 10 more
- English, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai, Traditional Chinese
- Age Rating
4+
- 4+
- In-App Purchases
Yes
- Ad-Free Catalog Upgrade $7.99
- Catalog Upgrade $4.99
- Copyright
- © 2026 Hongbin Qi
