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Quick Guide

Every function and where to find it.

Atlas

Pan: one finger. Zoom: pinch, down to a 0.02° field — fainter stars appear as you zoom in (to mag 14).
Tap an object (star, DSO, planet, asteroid, comet, satellite): opens its card. Tap empty sky: closes it.
The atlas shows: 8,797 deep-sky objects · ~12 million stars · Sun, Moon, planets · 14 asteroids · ~900 comets · ~16,000 satellites moving live (selected: orbit line) · JWST · Milky Way · constellation figures and IAU borders · real astrophotos — plus your own plate-solved images (long-press to remove).
Galaxies are drawn as ellipses with their real orientation.

Toggle button (hexagon, top right)

Opens a capsule with:

Framing — rotate the FOV frame, set a mosaic (up to 4×4, 10–30% overlap), zoom lenses get a focal-length slider. Long-press: rotation back to 0°. Only with a camera setup.
Horizon — flat horizon or the location's 8-sector profile (each sector 0–90°), edited in the card. Affects scoring, windows and plots.
Layers — star-magnitude slider (1–14) · Bortle slider (preview 1–9, reset arrow) · switches: DSO images, Milky Way, my photos, project rings, constellations, constellation borders.
AR — atlas follows the phone, camera as background. Red dot exits.
Night vision — whole app red, persists.

With a smart telescope, two extra buttons appear next to the capsule: EQ (wedge mode) and T/W (tele/wide lens).

Main card (bottom)

Status line — current view: FOV 2.4° · Alt +34° · Az 156° SE.
Setup pill — active setup, sampling, filters, date/moon/site/Bortle. Tap: switch setups. Below: switch locations.
Calendar pill — tap: calendar. Red lines: you're planning a time other than right now.
Tabs — Night · +Frames · ★ · Gear · Location.
Input field — search, Astro Buddy, gear, plate solving (see below).
Chevron — collapses everything down to atlas-only. Selection stays on the sky.

Night

Top 50 — tonight's 50 best DSOs for your setup and location. Per row: grade A–E, type, size, peak, usable dark window. Score = altitude + moon + horizon profile + FOV fit.
Type pills — Galaxies, Emission, Cluster, Planetary, Supernova, Dark, Reflection. Combinable, drag to reorder.
Planets — visibility windows and verdicts; twilight counts, since planets need no full darkness.
Stars — sub-pills All · Variable · Double · Carbon. Variables: state and next maximum/minimum. Doubles: separation, PA, companion — and whether your telescope splits the pair.

+Frames

Projects. Plus button on a target creates one (setup is snapshotted). If the target already has a project, the plus opens a menu: open project, new project with the current setup, delete. One target can hold several projects, each with its own equipment.

DSO projects — one row per filter. Enter exposure per sub, target subs, gain (HCG suggested if the sensor is known), captured subs per night. Shows integration, percent, remainder.
List — one row per project, sorted by tonight's score computed with each project's own equipment. Ring on the target = summed progress of its projects. Finished projects sit in a collapsed group at the bottom.
PA & Position — one row, one edit mode: rotate, set the mosaic, pan to the exact image center — Save stores all of it. Flying to the project restores it. Locked once subs are logged. Export plan: ASIAIR format to clipboard, one line per mosaic pane.
Mark finished — archive a project any time (the card offers it once the target is reached); reopen it from the Finished group whenever you want more hours.
Star projects — observation log: seeing (Antoniadi), limiting magnitude, SQM, notes, up to 10 photos. Export: OpenAstronomyLog XML (+ ZIP).
Moon/planet projects — info cards: ephemeris, disk trend, phase, ring tilt, Moon age, next opportunity (opposition, elongation, terminator window).

★

Favorites — star button on any row or card. Same rows and filters as Night.

Gear

Sections: astro cameras, planetary cameras, DSLR/mirrorless, telescopes, lenses, mounts, filters (set groups), reducers, flatteners, Barlows, eyepieces, guiding, filter wheels, smart telescopes.
Setups: save any combination, apply with one tap (also from the main card). An eyepiece makes the setup visual (FOV becomes a circle); a smart telescope activates alone, with its built-in filters.
Every item is editable field by field. Fastest way to add gear: type it in the chat ("I have a ZWO ASI2600MC") — specs appear, one tap saves.

Location

GPS plus any number of saved sites (city or place search). Per site: Bortle class 1–9 (with lookup link) and the 8-sector horizon profile.
All windows, twilight times and scores use the active site. Both hemispheres.
Credits row at the bottom: all data sources and photo licenses.

Calendar

Month view: moon phase and illumination under every day, dots for events and notes. Swipe vertically for other months.
Tap a day = plan that night. Atlas, rankings and cards compute for that date; reset arrow returns to now.
Event list, 35 days ahead: eclipses, meteor showers, comet perihelia, dark nights.
Search all events up to 2050: eclipses, moon phases, meteor showers, oppositions, elongations, conjunctions, perihelia.
Plus button: add your own note to any day.

Object cards

DSO — data, grade, dark window, moon separation, 24-hour altitude plot (green = usable). Drag the plot to scrub time — the atlas follows. Arrows: next/previous night.
Star — designation, spectral class, distance. Variables: type, period, next event with time. Doubles: split verdict first, then separation/PA/companion.
Sun/Moon/planets — rise/set, altitude plot, distance, disk size, phase, observing hint.
Asteroids/comets — distances, motion, perihelion date; comet brightness marked as estimate.
Satellites — altitude, speed, sunlit or in shadow, next visible pass with times.

Input field & Astro Buddy

Exact name → direct flight, no AI: "M 31", "Messier 31", "wolfs cave", "ISS", a NORAD number, "gaia dr3 <number>". Everything else goes to the Astro Buddy.
Ask: object explanations, visibility with computed times, planning with conditions ("what's in the north above 40° after 1 am?").
Exposure & filter advice — computed from your sensor, sky and moon; filter suggestions only from filters you own that fit your camera type (mono vs. color).
Add gear: name a device, check the spec card, tap save.
Plate solving: plus button in the chat → pick a photo → solved via nova.astrometry.net (own free API key, asked once). The solved photo appears in the atlas.
Memory: it remembers what you tell it (device + private iCloud only). Gear icon in the chat: view/delete notes, Send feedback, Clear chat history.

Data

Deep-sky catalog — 8,797 objects:

Catalog	In the app
Messier — complete	110 / 110
Sharpless (Sh2)	309 / 313
NGC	7,458 / 7,840
IC	437 / 5,386
LBN (bright nebulae)	397 / 1,125
LDN (dark nebulae)	161 / 1,802
Barnard (dark nebulae)	83 / 349
Collinder	74 / 471
vdB (reflection nebulae)	47 / 158

One object often carries several designations, so the rows overlap.

By type: 6,158 galaxies · 875 clusters · 681 emission nebulae · 218 dark nebulae · 185 supernova remnants · 148 reflection nebulae · 149 planetary nebulae · 383 asterisms, star clouds and historic catalog stars.

Stars: ~12 million, down to magnitude 14 — every one tappable · 379 proper names · 3,120 variables with event prediction + 57,852 GCVS variables, searchable · 9,836 doubles · 67 carbon stars · 88 constellations, 752 figure lines.

Backup: everything you create is mirrored to your private iCloud. No account.

Languages: EN, DE, FR, ES, IT, PT.

Sources: HYG/AT-HYG (CC BY-SA), ESA Gaia DR3, Washington Double Star Catalog, GCVS, IAU/Sky & Telescope figures (CC BY 4.0), IAU boundaries via VizieR, Milky Way imagery NASA/SVS, orbits from JPL, MPC, Celestrak. Full credits in the Location panel.