Orbit: Live Sky Desktop

The real sky on your desktop

Only for Mac

$6.99

Mac

Your desktop becomes the sky over your city, stars and planets where they are tonight. The ISS crosses it on every visible pass. Tonight's briefing is in the menu bar. Orbit turns your desktop into the real sky over your city, and keeps tonight's space briefing one click away in the menu bar. The sky on your desktop is the one outside: the stars, the planets and the Moon where they are right now, the colours of dusk and dawn as the Sun moves, far hills along the bottom. It changes once a minute and never asks for your attention. When the International Space Station crosses your sky, it crosses your desktop too, a bright point with a short trail, timed to the second. WHAT YOU GET • The real sky as your wallpaper: stars, constellations, planets, the Moon, twilight and daylight, computed for your location • The ISS crossing the desktop during every visible pass, and a button that previews the next one • A Moon in the menu bar in tonight's phase. Click it for tonight's briefing: sunset, the Moon, the planets, the next ISS pass, the next rocket launch with a countdown, and space weather with the aurora outlook • Alerts, each with its own switch: an ISS pass five minutes before it rises, a launch half an hour before liftoff, aurora on a night it may reach you • Face north, east, south or west; constellation lines and labels on or off; the next event beside the Moon in the menu bar, or the Moon alone LIGHT ON YOUR MAC Orbit draws the sky once a minute as a single still image and does nothing in between. It uses well under 1% of the processor and about 30 MB of memory while it runs, animates nothing but the station during a pass, and pauses whenever the desktop cannot be seen: behind a full-screen app, on the lock screen, or while the display sleeps. PRIVATE No account, no advertising, no analytics. The sky and the passes are computed on your Mac, and your location never leaves it: pick a city from the list, or use Location Services once. The only things Orbit fetches are public feeds: the station's orbit, the launch schedule and the Kp index. FROM THE MAKERS OF ORBIT FOR IPHONE The same sky engine as Orbit: ISS & Night Sky on iPhone, built for the desktop. GOOD TO KNOW Public data feeds can be late or unavailable; Orbit says so rather than guess, and tells you how old each source is at the foot of the card. Visible passes come in runs of a few evenings with gaps between them, so some days have none to show. Orbit is a planning and viewing companion, not a navigation or professional astronomy instrument. Requires macOS 15 or later.

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The developer, Syed Zaid, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .

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    Information

    Seller
    Syed Zaid
    Size
    1.4 MB
    Category
    Entertainment
    Compatibility
    Requires macOS 15.0 or later.
    • Mac
      Requires macOS 15.0 or later.
    Languages
    English
    Age Rating
    4+
    Copyright
    © 2026 Mad Max Labs
  • Developer Website
  • Privacy Policy

    • Supports

    • Family Sharing

      Up to six family members can use this app with Family Sharing enabled.