Star Archive

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.

Recent changes:
Built-in sky chart
• Stars to mag 9 bundled; mag 11 and 13 downloadable
• Open it from plans, the observing screen and object details
• Overlay several registered fields of view
• Rehearsal plays inside the chart
• Course editing: hour slots, order and start stars on one screen
• Observing screen rebuilt on the chart
• Star-hopping practice shares the chart's field-of-view settings
In this update
• Refined stars, a compass on every chart and a back button
• Night mode hides the button bar