What's New in AstroGuide 1.4.2

AstroGuide 1.4.2 is about expanding horizons.

This release opens four new directions for planning and exploring the night sky: Sky Captures turns supported iPhone night-sky photos into interactive maps; Star Parties helps you find astronomy gatherings around the world; Events follows a sky that changes beyond the static catalog; and expanded planetary tools make planets, lunar encounters, and moon systems easier to understand from your own observing site.

---

Sky Captures

Your iPhone is already a great tool for photographing the night sky. Now you can bring supported night-mode photos into AstroGuide and discover what you captured.

You can import a supported night-mode image and use on-device plate solving to identify the star field. Once the image has been solved, AstroGuide can place catalog subjects over the photo so you can explore what the camera captured, including objects that may not have been obvious when you took it.

Sky Captures is designed to do more than answer the age-old question, “Hey, did I capture Andromeda”? Now with AstroGuide, your iPhone helps you find your way in the night sky, understand what’s visible through your camera lens, and preview what you can see with telescopes.

On-device plate solving identifies the star field, so you can explore catalog subjects over your own image, add annotations, pin objects, and follow their trails over time. You can customize labels and overlays to prepare an image for sharing, or start the workflow directly from the iOS share sheet.

Your Sky Captures library is stored locally on your device. Solving requires a photo with enough visible stars and usable capture information; not every night image will contain enough information to produce a reliable result.

Star Parties

Astronomy is even better when you can share it with other people.

The new Star Parties experience highlights major astronomy gatherings around the world over the next 12 months. Each event can include practical details, imagery, distance context, and a map so you can understand where it is and whether it belongs in your plans.

Star parties are more than dark-sky destinations. They are a chance to experience the sky with other people, compare equipment and techniques, learn from experienced astronomers, and discover parts of the hobby that are difficult to encounter alone in a backyard.

Distance filters help keep the list useful whether you are looking for something nearby or planning a larger astronomy trip.

A More Dynamic Events View

The night sky is not a static catalog.

AstroGuide can now receive periodic event updates for reviewed nova and transient opportunities when they are available, as well as significant changes in comet brightness. These updates make it possible to surface noteworthy changes without waiting for a full app release.

The Events view brings those changing-sky opportunities together with Star Parties and the events you have already bookmarked. This creates one place to review what is coming up, what you want to remember, and what has changed enough to deserve another look.

Event bookmark rows also have clearer titles and improved layouts, making a growing collection of saved events easier to scan.

Better Planet Scheduling

Planetary planning now connects more cleanly to AstroGuide schedules.

Planet targets carry clearer names, better thumbnails, and more reliable schedule and preview paths. Planet detail pages also provide stronger entry points into the planning tools associated with each world.

These changes are less about adding another planet list and more about making planets behave like real planning subjects: something you can inspect, schedule, preview, and revisit with the same confidence as the rest of your observing plan.

Site-Aware Lunar Occultations

When the Moon passes near a planet, the result depends on where you are observing.

AstroGuide now distinguishes among a local occultation, a near miss, and an uncertain outcome for the selected site. The occultation visualizer lets you play the encounter or scrub through time, with estimated contact times, local-time context, and visibility indicators.

Matching Moon-to-planet encounters can also appear on planet detail pages, making it easier to move from an interesting planetary target to the lunar event that affects it.

Occultation times are planning estimates, not precision predictions for grazing events. Local terrain, atmospheric conditions, observer position, and the geometry near the lunar limb can all matter when exact timing is critical.

Planetary Moon Explorer

Solar System Mode now reaches beyond the major planets themselves.

Planetary Moon Explorer includes curated moon systems for Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. Time-scrubbable diagrams help show how the moons move around their planets, while representative imagery and moon detail sheets provide a closer look at the individual worlds.

Matching planet detail pages link into their moon systems, so the explorer feels like part of planetary planning instead of a separate reference catalog. You can move from a planet you are considering tonight into the larger system that surrounds it, then scrub time to understand how that system changes.