AstroGuide - Astrophotography1.4.2 - App Store

AstroGuide is a planning-and-learning companion for smart-telescope owners and newer astrophotographers who want to make better use of every night under the stars.

Start with the night itself. AstroGuide helps you understand weather, moonlight, sky brightness, visibility, local obstructions, equipment fit, available time, and subject timing before you commit your observing window.

Use AstroGuide to:

- See whether tonight looks strong, limited, risky, or better used for planning
- Find the most useful observing hours
- Browse deep-sky subjects with planning-aware context
- Preview subject paths across the sky
- Plan around your real site, horizon, and equipment
- Save goals and objectives for better future windows
- Compare framing and filter choices with Capture Studio
- Import and review telescope sessions with Direct Scan
- Learn from session efficiency, image metrics, and diagnostics

AstroGuide is especially useful for smart telescope workflows, including Seestar-style planning and review. It is built to complement the telescope software you already use by helping with the decisions around the session: what kind of night you have, what fits your setup, what belongs later, and what you can learn afterward.

For beginners, AstroGuide is designed to make astrophotography more approachable without hiding the complexity. Charts, tips, recommendations, sky views, and diagnostics are built to explain why something matters, not just show another number.

For more experienced users, AstroGuide offers deeper planning context: site profiles, horizon and panorama context, Sky Atlas views, Capture Studio framing tools, equipment kits, filter-aware planning, schedule import/export, and session analysis tools.

Core planning features are available for free. AstroGuide Pro unlocks advanced planning tools, including Capture Studio and multiple equipment kits.

AstroGuide helps you move from “the sky looks clear” to a plan that fits the actual night.

Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Privacy Policy: https://astroguide.space/privacy

Version History AstroGuide 1.4.2 is about expanding horizons: discover astronomy gatherings, follow a changing night sky, plan planetary targets, explore moon systems, and inspect your own sky photos.

• Sky Captures: Import supported night-sky photos, identify their star fields with on-device plate solving, explore catalog subjects, and create annotated images for sharing. Pin subjects, explore their trails, and customize overlays. Your Sky Captures library stays on your device.

• Star Parties: Find gatherings around the world, with event details, maps, and distance filters to help plan your next astronomy adventure.

• Events: Browse upcoming and bookmarked events, including Star Parties and reviewed nova and transient opportunities when available. Periodic comet updates help you follow changes in brightness.

• Planetary upgrade: Schedule planets more cleanly, explore lunar occultations and near misses for your observing site with an interactive visualizer, and follow matching Moon-to-planet encounters from planet detail pages. Planetary Moon Explorer adds curated moon systems for Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto with time-scrubbable views, representative imagery, and moon detail sheets.

• Notifications: Set bookmarked-event reminders and receive a Tonight Summary. AstroGuide Pro adds alerts for meaningful observing-window changes and comet opportunities.

• More planning tools: Explore optional planet, constellation, and Milky Way overlays, plus iPhone camera framing presets and Seestar S50 Pro support.

This release also reduces startup and background memory use, clarifies iCloud status messages, improves event layouts, and includes catalog additions and corrections.

Sky-photo solving requires sufficient visible stars and capture information. 1.4.2 Oct 3 AstroGuide 1.4.1 adds Gear Advisor for schedule review, Browse Collections with progress tracking, richer comet and target image metadata, and hourly forecast details for found locations.

- Review schedules with Gear Advisor, including filter fit, framing, timing, obstruction, exposure, and session-risk guidance.
- Track progress through Messier, Caldwell, Herschel 400, and RASC Finest NGC collections.
- See richer target images and comet details for dozens of subjects.
- Search, Browse, widgets, launch/background behavior, and dynamic metadata handling are faster and more reliable. 1.4.1 Aug 28 Paste-ready:

Version 1.4 marks a major milestone for AstroGuide: Solar System Mode.

AstroGuide’s planning tools now extend beyond deep-sky objects to help you understand the Moon, planets, comets, meteor showers, and close encounters as part of the same sky you observe from your own back yard.

- Planetary Mode is now Solar System Mode, with new Lunar, Meteors, and Comets sections.
- Lunar Mode adds moonlight timing, phase-cycle planning, full-moon cycle names, eclipse details, and Moon close encounters with deep-sky subjects.
- Comet Mode adds curated comet browsing, orbit and tail geometry, sky-path previews, and close-encounter context.
- Meteor showers now include active-window highlighting, date scrubbing, orbital context, and bookmark support.
- Upcoming Events and Recent Bookmarks make Solar System events easier to save, revisit, and use while planning.
- Site Visibility sharing, catalog aliases, Telescope Workshop equipment, metadata handling, launch behavior, and Solar System detail views have all been improved. 1.4.0 Aug 13 AstroGuide 1.3.6 adds Planetary Mode, a new way to explore which planets are visible tonight with visibility timing, sky-path context, and an educational solar-system view.

This release is also coordinated with the release of https://explore.astroguide.space, the web based companion to AstroGuide. The website enables richer sharing of schedules, including sharing with fellow astronomers that don't have AstroGuide (yet :) )

- Capture Studio projects can now carry framing details into schedules, with FOV footprints shown in schedule and sky previews. You can now see the correct field of view rectangle for your telescope/mount configuration when scheduling your subject to ensure collision of obstructions.
- Telescope Workshop adds stronger rig comparison tools and Pro search results for owned rigs, optics, and cameras. You can now compare multiple telescopes, and find rigs or components using the global search in AstroGuide.
- ASIAIR schedule import is more flexible, and AstroPlan export/import better preserves framed schedule details.
- Also includes improved narrowband target classification, longer observed-cloud history, Planetary Mode polish, and other UI and reliability fixes. 1.3.6 Jul 31 - Added Timing Advisor to help optimize schedule order and timing based on visibility, obstructions, altitude, sky brightness, and lunar impact.
- Added Dark Sky site support, including nearby sites, subject-specific dark-site discovery, comparisons, and directions.
- Added schedule management tools plus ASIAIR clipboard import/export.
- Improved Observation Window recommendations, Capture Studio panel guidance, iCloud Sync status, new-device restore, panoramas, and text wrapping.
- Improved performance across app launch, Tonight, Search, and Cloud Sync, with dynamically updateable comet catalog data. 1.3.5 Jul 19 Capture Studio 2.0 adds dedicated tools for framing, filter evaluation, sub-length guidance, integration planning, and saved Pro capture goals.
New Telescope Workshop lets you build custom astrophotography rigs from 1,300+ optics, cameras, and accessories, with Pro support for saving setups.
Schedule planning now includes interactive path previews with lunar separation, obstruction checks, and richer lunar context.
Search: Explore and Sky Atlas now support framing FOV rectangles in Alt/Az or EQ orientation.
Observation Windows are smarter, with Prime Time, Preview, and Last Chance seasonal recommendations. 1.3.4 Jul 8 This update brings major Search/Browse performance improvements, bundled subject thumbnails, smarter Observation Window guidance, improved site/location comparisons, better iCloud sync handling, and the first version of Telescope Workshop for building custom astrophotography rigs.

Also includes catalog polish, stability fixes, and reduced memory/network usage across the app. 1.3.3 Jul 1 new features:
- Improved cloud modeling: Cloudy windows with low sky-blocking cloud impact can now show as narrowband-friendly planning windows instead of fully closed windows.
- The Data Analysis Export feature can now fetch associated weather data for better exernal analytics.
- You can add/edit notes for goal and objectives
- Rain Check checks the forecast for the morning after your session and provides a warning if theres a chance of rain.
- Search does a better job of finding subjects, even when just numbers are entered.

new experimental features:
- Seestar screenshot import: take a screenshot of your plan in the Seestar app, then import it into AstroGuide!
- You can now save a "visibility window" for searches, and have it automatically apply to all future searches.

Stability and performance improvements across a wide range of features:
- Monthly Availability forecasts
- Path Preview track calculation
- Integration efficiency calculuations are now Just-in-time
- Search/Browse/Catalog performance improvements
- Image loading is optimized in search, goals, and galaxy views 1.3.2 Jun 22 Bug fixes, Performance improvements. Added new Experimental Features section in settings preview features being considered for upcoming releases. 1.3 Jun 15 fixed a syncing issue. 1.2 Jun 14 This version includes start-up time improvements, and streamlines the astroplan schedule imports. 1.1 Jun 12 1.0 Jun 12