Mac Astronomy Software

The open-source planetarium that most astronomers start with. Renders a realistic sky from any location and time, with a catalog of over a million objects. Supports telescope GOTO control.

Deep catalogs, telescope control, observing lists, and AR sky overlay. The premium iOS/Mac planetarium app with professional-grade functionality.

A commercial planetarium with a 38,000-object database, telescope control, and an interactive sky guide. Strong visual fidelity for observation planning.

Desktop planetarium focused on chart accuracy and catalog access rather than visual polish. Pulls data from numerous professional catalogs.

Lightweight planetarium with fast rendering and a focus on deep-sky observation. Downloads additional catalog data as needed.

Gravity simulator focused on orbital mechanics — model asteroids, comets, planetary systems. Not a traditional planetarium but useful for education and visualization.

A 3D model of the Milky Way, letting you explore the galaxy from any vantage point.

Professional observatory control software from Software Bisque. Combines a planetarium with camera, mount, focuser, and dome automation. The most complete commercial option on Mac.

The free, open-source powerhouse. KStars provides the planetarium and planning layer; EKOS handles automated capture sequences, focusing, guiding, plate solving, scheduling, and mosaic planning.

A native Mac all-in-one imaging suite built on the INDIGO driver platform. Handles capture, guiding, telescope control, and scripting in a single app. M1/Apple Silicon native with Metal acceleration. Free download with optional agent GUI modules at €24.99 each via the Mac App Store.

Open-source imaging suite for CCD/CMOS cameras, integrating capture, mount control, and basic guiding. Cross-platform via Free Pascal/Lazarus.

A cross-platform capture tool supporting a wide range of astronomy cameras. Outputs SER, FITS, AVI, and TIFF.

Java-based planetary capture application with advanced features like auto-alignment and ROI selection. Cross-platform but requires Java runtime on Mac.

Open-source camera capture tool supporting many astronomy cameras via native drivers.

Modern capture controller that speaks to mainstream mirrorless and DSLR bodies (Fujifilm, Canon, Nikon, Sony) alongside dedicated astronomy cameras, mounts, filter wheels, focusers, rotators, and flat panels.

Scripts a compatible Canon camera through every phase of a solar eclipse with the correct exposures and timing, given your coordinates and an accurately set clock. Includes focusing assistance. Review solar safety guidance before pointing a camera at the sun.

The standard autoguiding software across all platforms — free, open-source, and used by the vast majority of astrophotographers. Supports guide cameras from every major manufacturer and works with INDI/INDIGO driver frameworks on macOS.

Post-session analysis for imagers running N.I.N.A. Reads your FITS files, metadata, guiding logs, and N.I.N.A. logs to break down guiding performance, focus quality, subframe statistics, and equipment behavior, so you can find what went wrong and fix it before the next clear night.

Free, open-source deep-sky stacking and processing pipeline — calibration, registration, stacking, background extraction, and color calibration in one tool. Apple Silicon native with scripting automation for batch workflows.

Astrometric stacking and plate-solving tool. Handles calibration, registration, and stacking with built-in star catalogs for astrometric solving.

Free unified photo, design, and publishing app by Canva (formerly Affinity Photo). Retains astrophotography features including star stacking, noise reduction, and advanced layer editing. Some AI features require a paid Canva plan.

Python-based planetary stacker. Requires manual setup with a Python launcher on macOS but produces excellent results.

Java-based planetary stacker focused on lucky imaging workflows. Cross-platform.

Mac-native planetary stacker available on the Mac App Store.

Mac-native deep-sky stacker available on the Mac App Store. Simple interface for basic stacking workflows.

Nightscape stacking for landscape astrophotography. Composites a rapid burst of exposures, aligning the sky separately from the foreground, for low-noise Milky Way images with pinpoint stars. Sister app to Starry Sky Stacker; a free trial is available on the developer’s site.

Specialized star trail stacking tool. Blends multiple exposures into dramatic star trail composites.

Open-source live stacking tool from the Open Astro Project. Real-time stacking for visual observation.

Easy to use stacking tool covering image stacking, dark frame subtraction, background removal, blurring, and tone mapping across common image formats. A good first stacker before stepping up to Siril or PixInsight.

Beginner-friendly stacker that aligns and combines night-sky exposures to reduce noise and pull out faint detail. Full RAW support with an automatic machine-learning blending mask, trading advanced controls for a deliberately simple workflow.

Turns a night’s worth of star photos into star trail images or a time-lapse video, with trail effects including full, faded, shooting star, javelin, and warp modes.

The professional gold standard for deep-sky image processing. Runs on macOS via Rosetta 2 on Apple Silicon Macs with no noticeable performance penalty. Unmatched depth for calibration, registration, stacking, deconvolution, and nonlinear processing.

Intuitive deep-sky processing suite handling the full pipeline from calibration through final processing. Apple Silicon native with 2.5× faster performance on M-series chips. Excellent mosaic tools and a free trial available.

Guided astrophotography processing that prevents common mistakes. Unique tracking engine records all operations non-destructively.

All-in-one suite spanning stacking through post-processing: dynamic background extraction, object identification with SIMBAD and Vizier, star-based white balance, sharpening and denoising, WaveScaleHDR, and more. The Cosmic Clarity tools are now built in, with optional paid Smart Tools available. Replaces the older standalone Seti Astro editing tools. Runs on Intel and Apple Silicon Macs.

Open-source gradient removal tool. Extracts and removes light pollution gradients from astrophotos using AI models.

Neural network star removal tool. Separates stars from nebulae in a single click for starless processing.

AI-powered noise reduction specifically trained on astrophotography data. Now distributed alongside StarNet, as both a PixInsight module and standalone command-line tools.

General-purpose AI denoising and sharpening. Not astro-specific but widely used by astrophotographers for final enhancement.

Java-based photometry and light curve analysis tool. Primarily for exoplanet transit detection and variable star research.

Asteroid and NEO detection using synthetic tracking, which stacks hundreds of images to pull faint moving targets out of the noise. GPU accelerated with Apple Silicon support, plus precision astrometry against the Gaia catalog. Formerly Windows-only, now available on the Mac.

Observation planning and logging tool with detailed object information, observability predictions, and equipment profiles.

Mac-native observation planner and logger with catalog browsing, sky charts, and equipment management.

Professional tool for astronomy, archaeoastronomy, and historical eclipse research. Cross-platform with a native macOS build, actively maintained.

Optics calculator that brings the standard telescope, eyepiece, and camera formulas together in one place. Includes an equipment database you can mix and match, or enter custom values manually.

Open-source FITS library manager that organizes, catalogs, and batch-renames your subs with metadata extraction and session analysis. Pulls data straight from Seestar, StellarMate, Dwarf, and iTelescope, and can sync your repository to cloud storage. Cross-platform Python app; installation involves a few terminal steps.

Quick Look plugin for macOS that adds FITS file previews directly in Finder.

Professional FITS viewer from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. Advanced visualization, analysis, and catalog overlay.

Mac-native FITS viewer on the App Store with basic viewing and analysis features.

FITS viewer from the Max Planck Institute. Lightweight but capable with basic measurement tools.

Plate-solving utility using local index files. Works offline for astrometric calibration.

Fast FITS image culling for astrophotographers. Measures star quality (FWHM, eccentricity, SNR, star count) from raw pixel data with GPU-accelerated rendering. Session chart with drag-to-select batch culling and filter-aware grouping.

Viewer for SER (planetary video) files with playback controls and frame export.

Analyzes PHD2 guiding logs to diagnose mount tracking issues.

Mac utility to help with telescope collimation using a camera feed.

Red-screen filter utility for macOS to preserve dark adaptation while using your laptop at the telescope.

Makes FITS and XISF files behave like normal images in Finder: QuickLook previews, file icons, GPU-accelerated rendering, automatic stretching, and smart metadata display.

Scientific FITS visualization and analysis: open and inspect images and spectra, run profile analysis and matrix operations, and convert data between formats. Everything is processed locally, with an optional Apple Intelligence assistant on supported Macs.

AI-assisted session culling. Scores every subframe with target-aware quality weighting, flags clouds, wind shake, focus drift, and satellite trails, and learns from your keep-or-toss decisions so you get to stacking faster.

Fast FITS and XISF viewer for grading the night’s subs before you stack. Batch analysis of star HFD/FWHM, tilt, field flatness, aberrations, and clipping, sitting between capture (N.I.N.A., ASIAIR, Ekos) and stacking (PixInsight, Siril, APP). Also reads TIFF and camera RAW.

The recommended driver framework for Mac astrophotography. Native macOS support with an extensive device library maintained by CloudMakers.

GUI frontend for managing INDIGO device connections, properties, and configurations.

Status monitoring dashboard for INDIGO-connected devices during imaging sessions.

The original open-source astronomy device driver framework. Cross-platform, bundled with KStars/EKOS.

Web-based INDI server manager for starting, stopping, and configuring INDI driver profiles.

Mac utility for launching and managing INDI server instances with saved configurations.

INDI client for deep-sky imaging that controls mounts, cameras, focusers, and filter wheels, with a built-in star chart for target selection, multi-camera shooting, and plate solving through ASTAP or Astrometry.net.

ZWO's official camera control suite for macOS. Includes ASICap for capture and ASILive for basic live stacking.

QHY's polar alignment camera software. Uses a dedicated camera for precise polar alignment.

iOptron's electronic polar alignment app. Requires iOptron mount with iPolar camera.

Image acquisition software for QSI 500/600-series CCD cameras from developer Joe Shimkus, with exposure control, filter selection, subframe selection, and FWHM/HFR focusing aids. QSEye is $19.99 with a free Lite version; both were sold through the Mac App Store, though the store listings appear to have been withdrawn.

Open-source clone of Celestron’s PECTool: uploads, downloads, and edits periodic error correction data for NexStar-family mounts over the hand controller’s serial port. An older tool (last release 2014) but the Mac build is still downloadable.

Advanced mount control for 10Micron GM mounts. Model building, alignment, and pointing optimization.