Astronomy at your Fingertips

Mobile Observatory

The best Astronomy App for Android

Accurate Sky Simulation

Mobile Observatory shows you a realistic view of the sky for any time and any place on Earth. It provides the most accurate simulation of sky colors available for any astronomical app. Twilight looks gorgeous, the landscape is illuminated by the full moon, and the sky at blue hour looks just like the real thing.

LARGE ASTRONOMICAL DATABASE

The database includes more than 2.5 Mio. stars, >2500 deep sky objects (galaxies, nebulae, clusters, ...), 60 000 minor planets, about 1000 comets, more than 5000 artificial satellites (ISS, Starlink, ...), and all prominent meteor showers. All data are kept up-to-date by free daily updates.

Celestial Events

One of the biggest strengths of Mobile Observatory is its user-friendly celestial events section. You will never miss a lunar eclipse, a bright ISS pass, or a nice conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn. Daily automatically generated reports of celestial events for your location keep you up-to-date.

Key Features of the PRO version

General

  • Photo-realistic display of the night and day sky with correctly illuminated landscape
  • Positions of all included objects computed with scientifically professional accuracy
  • Augumented sky view using your device's camera
  • 3D-view of the Solar System
  • Cardboard VR viewing of the night sky or the Solar System in 3D
  • Daily notifications of current celestial events
  • Lots of great widgets for your home screen

Database

  • 45 000 stars plus optionally 2.5 mio stars for download (to magnitude 13)
  • Artificial Satellites including the International Space Station (ISS) and all Starlink satellites
  • 2 500 selected NGC objects (galaxies, clusters, ...)
  • Messier Catalog (110 objects) complete with images
  • Caldwell Catalog (110 objects) complete with images
  • Hidden Treasures Catalog (109 objects) complete with images - Meteor streams (begin, maximum, hourly rate, ...)
  • More than 60 000 Minor Planets with daily updates of orbital parameters
  • More than 1 000 Comets with daily updates
  • All bright Artificial Satellites including the International Space Station (ISS) and all Starlink satellites
  • All major Meteor streams (begin, maximum, hourly rate, ...)

Additional features

  • Live mode (point device on sky and get information on what you see)
  • Automatically generated visibility report for any object
  • Fully customizable main menu
  • Current images of the Sun and sunspot number
  • Lunar and solar eclipses information
  • Twilight times, length of day, blue and golden hour
  • Rise, set, and transit times for any object
  • Lunar librations, ascending node, maximum declination
  • Simulation of light pollution
  • Dates of conjunctions between any object with planets or the Moon
  • Accurate calculations for dates between 1900 and 2100

What the users say

A must-have for amateur and professional astronomers alike. This app is well-designed, making it easy to get to whatever data source you require, such as knowing when is the best time to view the moon or planets. Tons of knowledge is available in just a few clicks, something I greatly appreciate. Highly recommended!
Trevor Williams
June 2020
It's the only astronomy app I use on an almost daily basis and has served me very well over the years.This new version has some nice new features, but the biggest and best improvement for me is the graphic depiction of the night sky - especially during twilight. If I had to choose just one app to recommend someone - paid or free - I would recommend MO.
Richard Bartlett
February 2019
Great app, almost overwhelming in scope. However thanks to this app, I had no trouble finding the currently very visible comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) and it also told me what the best time was at my location to look for it. This was awesome!
Gerald Mengisen
July 2020
I have a library of astronomy apps. Each does a few things well but I was always looking for something that did more. This is the one. The content is fantastic, the UI is spot on. Kudos dev for this amazing app. Best $7.50 I"ve ever spent. Thank you.
Silvana Della Camera
June 2020

News

Mobile Observatory is constantly improved and new features are added regularly. The current version of Mobile Observatory Pro is 3.3.6.

New in Version 3.3.3g (June 2021):

  • App can be transferred to SD-card again
  • I have been working on a major improvement of the Sky View, which will improve the frame rate, quality, and will add some new features. You can get a glimpse of a preliminary beta version via the left hand menu (Beta: Sky View)
  • Unfortunately, I had to disable voice search due to policy issues with Google Play. Once, these issues are solved, I will enable it again.
  • Link to X-Ray data of the sun updated

More coming soon...