Astrarium Privacy Policy

Last updated: 21 October 2026

Personal data we collect

None. Astrarium does not collect, store or transmit personal data. There are no accounts, no analytics and no advertising SDKs.

Location

Location (When In Use) is used solely to compute the sky visible from where you are. The computation happens entirely on your device. The one exception is when you choose to show “Cloud cover tonight”: the site's latitude and longitude, rounded to about 10 km, are then sent to MET Norway (the Norwegian Meteorological Institute) to receive a cloud forecast. This happens only after a notice and your consent on first use, and you can turn it off at any time. If you decline location access, the app remains fully usable: choose an observing site from the bundled list or type in a latitude and longitude.

Network access

The app contacts the network only when you ask it to:

• satellite orbital elements (CelesTrak)
• comet and asteroid elements (IAU Minor Planet Center, NASA/JPL)
• observed comet brightness (COBS)
• the aurora forecast and space weather (NASA DONKI) — solar-wind arrival predictions, the record of geomagnetic storms, interplanetary shocks and high-speed streams, and the NASA/CCMC notifications
• the measured auroral oval (NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center, the OVATION nowcast)
• map tiles on the observing-site screen (OpenStreetMap) and the light-pollution overlay (this site, GitHub Pages)
• the cloud forecast for tonight (MET Norway) — as described under Location, only with your consent, sending latitude and longitude rounded to about 10 km

Apart from the cloud forecast, each downloads published data and uploads nothing about you. What comes back is kept on the device, and if a download fails the app carries on with the stored copy or the data it ships with. If you never ask for any of these, the app makes no network requests at all.

Camera (AR)

In AR the camera is used to show the view in front of you with the star chart laid over it. The video is only displayed: it is never recorded and never transmitted. A single frame is saved to your device only when you press the AR capture button.

Data stored on your device

Display settings, the observing site you chose and any orbital elements you downloaded are kept on the device. On iPhone, the most recent results (site name, latitude and longitude, event times and the like) are also kept in the app's private area on the device so that the Home Screen and Lock Screen widgets, Live Activities and Siri shortcuts can show tonight's sky. Deleting the app removes them.

Charts you export (PNG, PDF) and AR captures are written to shared storage, and only when you ask for them: on Android to Pictures/Astrarium and Download/Astrarium, on iOS to Photos or Files. Because they live in shared storage, they remain after the app is deleted. Remove them from your Photos or Files app if you no longer want them.

Children

The app is suitable for all ages and collects no personal data from anyone.

Contact

Questions: avellsky@gmail.com