About this app
What Nightsight does
Nightsight is the offline observation log for backyard astronomers. It does the one thing SkyView Lite, Stellarium Mobile, and Star Walk 2 all refuse to do: lets you save what you actually observed, when you observed it, and from where. What Nightsight does: — Tap-to-log. You're at the eyepiece. Tap a star, planet, or Messier object. Nightsight saves it to a life-list with the date, your location (CoreLocation), and tonight's seeing conditions (you grade 1-10 on your own). — Bundled sky catalog. ~50,000 stars (Hipparcos), all 110 Messier objects, all 88 constellations, all 8 planets — on this phone, no network. Browse, search by Messier number, search by constellation. — AR sky finder. Hold up the phone. Constellations and planets are drawn in correct sky position via CoreMotion and your GPS. No subscription, no ads, no 'upgrade for planets.' — Sketch the eyepiece. PencilKit sketch pad. Your visual notes go in the entry. Beat charcoal-on-paper without giving up the paper feel. — Plate-solve your photos. Snap a photo of the sky with your phone. A small on-device CoreML constellation classifier tells you what region you captured. Save it to the entry. — Life list. Sortable by date, by object, by location. Export to CSV via the share sheet for your astronomy club. — No account, no cloud, no analytics. Stays on this phone. — Free. For the 100,000-300,000 active US amateur astronomers and the millions of telescope-curious — and for everyone tired of SkyView's compass bugs and Stellarium's spinner-only numeric input.
Features
Built to be useful, not noisy.
Tonight sky
What's up right now from your latitude; tap to log
AR finder
Hold the phone up; on-device sky alignment via CoreMotion
Catalog
Browse stars / Messier / constellations / planets, search
Eyepiece sketch
PencilKit pad; attach to a log entry
Life list
Sortable observation log; CSV export via share sheet
Why it exists
The problem
Backyard astronomers need a place to log what they observed — the Hipparcos catalog is huge but every iOS planetarium app is either a sub-charged AR toy with a compass bug (SkyView, Star Walk 2) or a spinner-only UX (Stellarium Mobile).
What's different
How Nightsight stands out
Nightsight is the only iOS stargazing app whose primary verb is 'logged it' — bundled Hipparcos + Messier catalog runs entirely on-device with CoreLocation + CoreMotion alignment, PencilKit sketches, and a SwiftData life list — SkyView's compass is widely reported as wrong, Stellarium charges $13.99 for spinner-only n…
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FAQ
Questions about Nightsight
How much does Nightsight cost?▾
Nightsight is free. All features are included from day one — no subscription, no in-app purchases, no paid tiers. Everything you see in this listing works the moment you install it.
Where does Nightsight store my data?▾
On your device. Nightsight is built privacy-first: no account is required, no analytics SDKs, no third-party trackers. Nothing is uploaded to a server we control — the app works without one.
What platforms does Nightsight support?▾
iOS, on iPhone and iPad. You can find the latest availability on this page.
How do I get support for Nightsight?▾
Use the Support link on this page, or email support@allthingsn.com. We answer every message and keep responses on the same thread.
The story
Meet Nightsight — What you saw, the night you saw it
Read the full write-up · 4 min →
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