SkyHunt

Khalid ELMERRAH

Contains ads

About this game

SkyHunt turns the sky above you into something you can play with your own eyes.

Hold up your phone and the real night sky appears, drawn from a catalogue of 5,045 stars in their true positions for your location and the exact moment you are looking. Find the shape you have been asked for, then trace it star to star with your finger. Get it right and the constellation is yours for good.

There is no camera and no augmented reality. SkyHunt draws the sky itself, which is what makes it readable outdoors at night, when a camera sees nothing but black.

WHAT YOU CAN FIND

- All 88 official constellations, each with its story and the name people gave it
- 38 of them also have a short, bright version using only stars you can genuinely see from a town, so you are never hunting for something invisible
- The Moon at its real phase, and the planets where they actually are tonight
- Six minor planets, including Ceres and Vesta
- The International Space Station and other satellites, tracked from real orbital data
- Meteor showers that stream from their true radiant, so the Perseids really do come out of Perseus

BUILT ON REAL ASTRONOMY

Positions are computed the way astronomers compute them, and checked against published reference values. The app knows which constellations rise where you live and which never do, so it will not send you looking for something that is under the horizon. The atlas keeps them in three groups: up right now, back later in the year, and far enough south that you would have to travel.

MADE FOR ACTUAL NIGHTS OUTSIDE

- Works offline
- Warm, dim colours chosen to protect your night vision
- Haptics and sound, so you can feel a star snap without staring at the screen
- A couch mode for cloudy nights and indoor use, where an on-screen stick replaces pointing the phone
- Nine languages

PRIVACY

No account. No sign-in. No ads. No analytics. No tracking of any kind.

Your approximate location is used only to draw the correct sky. It is rounded before it is stored and it never leaves your phone.

Live aircraft spotting is the one optional extra that uses the internet. It stays switched off until you turn it on, it tells you exactly what it will send before its first request, and it sends only a coarse area, never your precise position.

Point it up. Trace something. Come back tomorrow night.

What’s new

First internal test release.

Trace constellations on a live sky built for your location. Explore the Moon, planets, minor planets, satellites, aircraft and meteor showers in their real positions.

Includes Freeze Sky capture mode, gyroscope and joystick controls, a personal Star Atlas, nine languages, offline play and polished sound.