Stellarium Plus - Star Map

Review by eFreeware

Stellarium Plus is the paid, expanded edition of a planetarium app built by the original creator of the Stellarium desktop software, and the clearest way to describe it is this: hold the phone up and it shows what is above you, matching the screen to the real sky. Point it at a patch of darkness and it names what is there. That immediacy is the feature I would lead with, because it is what separates a sky map from a chart you have to read.

It is a paid app at $19.99 with no ads and no in-app purchases, which frames the audience from the start. This is not a free tool you try on a whim; it is aimed at people who already spend evenings outside looking up, or who want to. It suits adults and children curious about the night sky, and demanding enthusiasts too: the Plus edition reaches far deeper into the catalogs and adds observing tools that a casual user would never touch.

A sky map that matches the view in front of you

The core experience is identification in real time. Raise the phone, and the app shows stars, constellations, planets, comets, satellites such as the ISS, and deep sky objects in the direction you are facing. The developer says this takes seconds, and the mechanism is simply aiming the device at the sky rather than searching a list or tapping coordinates. For anyone who has stood outside wondering which bright point is a planet and which is a plane, that is the whole appeal.

Around that sits a simulation layer. You can view the sky for any date, time and location, not just the present moment, which makes it useful for planning a session later in the week or looking back at an event you missed. Landscape and atmosphere are simulated too, including sunrise, sunset and atmospheric refraction, so objects near the horizon sit where they actually appear rather than where a pure geometric calculation would put them. The major planets and their moons are rendered in 3D, which gives a sense of the solar system as a set of places rather than dots.

There is also a cultural dimension that I find more interesting than the usual technical spec sheet. The app lets you switch between the constellation shapes and illustrations used by many sky cultures, so you can see how the same stars were grouped and named by people in different parts of the world. It is a small feature in the menu and a large one in what it says about the app: this is a planetarium in the old sense, a way of showing how humans have read the sky, not only a database of coordinates.

The deep catalogs that justify the Plus name

Where the Plus edition separates itself from a standard version is depth. The developer describes objects down to magnitude 22 here, against magnitude 10 in the standard release, and that difference is enormous in practical terms. It is the gap between seeing the bright landmarks and being able to chase faint galaxies and nebulae that require dark skies and patience. The catalogs behind it include the Gaia DR3 set of more than 1.81 billion stars, a combined collection of over 2 million nebulas and galaxies, all known planets, natural satellites and comets, and around 10,000 asteroids.

Those numbers matter less as bragging rights than as a promise about what happens when you zoom. The app supports near-limitless zoom on high-resolution images of deep sky objects and planetary surfaces, so a faint smudge can be examined rather than merely located. For someone working through a list of targets over months, that depth is the reason to pay for this edition rather than settle for a shallower one.

I would not pretend the catalog size changes a beginner's evening. A first-time user will spend their time on the Moon, Jupiter, the brighter constellations and the ISS, all of which are easy to find. The deep catalog is a long-term asset: it means the app does not run out of sky as your interests sharpen, which is exactly the argument for buying the fuller version once rather than upgrading later.

Telescope control and planning a session

The feature that turns this from a reference into equipment is telescope control. The app can drive a GOTO mount over Bluetooth or WiFi, and it supports the NexStar, SynScan and LX200 protocols. If your mount speaks one of those, the phone becomes the handset: you find an object on screen and the telescope goes to it. That is a meaningful convenience at the eyepiece, where juggling a separate controller and a chart in the dark gets old quickly.

Alongside that are the advanced observing tools for preparing a session. The app can predict whether a given celestial object will be observable and when it will transit, which is the kind of calculation that decides whether a target is worth setting up for on a given night. Planning ahead with that information is a different activity from browsing the sky, and it is clearly built for people who keep notes and work through targets deliberately.

One detail I appreciate is night mode, which renders the interface in red to preserve your eyes' adaptation to darkness. Anyone who has ruined twenty minutes of dark adaptation by glancing at a bright screen will understand why a planetarium app needs this, and it is the sort of thing that shows the app was designed by people who actually observe.

What it needs from you, and what the price implies

The most important practical point is offline behavior, and here the app is unusually explicit. Offline, the catalog is smaller: it drops to 10,000 asteroids, 2.3 million deep sky objects and 3 million stars. That is still a very large sky, and it means a trip to a dark site without signal does not leave you with a blank screen. The full catalogs are the connected experience; the reduced set is what travels with you.

The cost is a one-time $19.99. There are no ads and no in-app purchases, so nothing interrupts an observing session and there is no second decision to make after buying. The trade-off is simply that you pay upfront for an app whose free alternatives exist, and the value depends entirely on whether you will use the depth and the telescope control. Someone who wants to identify a few constellations once a month is paying for capability they may never reach for.

There is also a hardware requirement worth stating plainly: telescope control only applies if you own a GOTO mount compatible with NexStar, SynScan or LX200. Without one, that whole section of the app is inert, and the case for the Plus edition rests on the catalogs, the planning tools and the offline data instead. That is still a strong case for a regular observer, but it is a narrower one.

Who this edition is built for

The app's own focus points to a specific reader. It targets anyone curious about the night sky, from kids to grown-ups, and serious hobbyists too, though the Plus edition leans toward the second group. The magnitude 22 depth, the session planning, the transit predictions and the mount control are all features that reward regular use. A family pointing a phone at the Moon on a clear evening will find plenty to like, but they will be using a fraction of what they paid for.

The strongest fit is someone who observes often enough to plan, who owns or aspires to a GOTO telescope, and who values a catalog that keeps going as their targets get fainter. The offline data set matters most to people who travel to darker skies away from reliable signal. If that describes your habit, the one-time price is easy to justify against the cost of a single eyepiece.

The app has been available since March 2019 and carries a 4.8 average from more than 8,100 ratings, with over 100,000 installs. For a paid app you intend to keep for years, a long track record is part of the value.

A planetarium worth paying for if you observe regularly

Stellarium Plus does one thing unusually well and then adds the depth to keep doing it. Pointing the phone at the sky and getting an answer in seconds is the hook, but the reason to choose this edition is the magnitude 22 catalog, the observing planner, the telescope control and the fact that a reduced but still vast data set works offline in the field. Night mode and the cultural constellation illustrations show attention to how the app is actually used after dark.

I would recommend it to people who already spend time at a telescope or intend to start, especially those with a compatible GOTO mount and a habit of planning sessions in advance. The $19.99 one-time price, with no ads or purchases, suits that kind of long-term use. Casual stargazers who want to name a few constellations will find the free tier of the market perfectly adequate, and the depth here will sit unused.

For the committed observer, though, this is a well-established app with a deep catalog, real equipment integration and the offline coverage that makes it useful away from home. That combination is what the Plus edition is for, and it is a reasonable thing to pay for once.

What's new in version 1.16.8

This update brings the following improvements: - Fix in-app purchases sometimes not being recognized or acknowledged - Many other bug fixes and improvements We are happy to hear from you and get your feedback!