Life & fun · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to Galactic Compass – an app that points to the galactic center
I made a single-serving iPhone app with a floating green arrow that always points to the center of the Milky Way, 26,000 lights years away. It’s weirdly grounding. I’ve never made an app before, so here’s how it worked with ChatGPT.
Galactic Compass is an iPhone app that displays a floating green arrow constantly pointing toward the center of the Milky Way, located 26,000 light-years away. The app serves as a simple tool for users interested in… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Galactic Compass – an app that points to the galactic center launched in 2024; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
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A compass that shows landmarks, sunrise/sunset + golden hour
Jan 2026 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
- 3AAAstro App▲291
I really like Stellarium and SkySafari but I felt like these are primarily geared towards exploring the sky but not so much "here are the long list of things I want to see, when can I see them tonight and where". There's also not really a great option I've found that combines sky object planning + location weather details while still being free so I built this. The UI's heavily inspired by NINAs sky atlas + Robinhood. Right now you can: View the altitude chart of objects and 3D view Create lists of objects of interest View the annual max/min daily altitude of an object to find the best…
2024 · astro.sshh.io · its alternatives →
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Hey HN, This is a follow-up to our original Show HN post, where I launched the first version of MBCompass. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44155741 Since then, I've added several features based on user feedback and community input... I just released v1.1.9 of MBCompass - Minimal, FOSS compass and navigation app. New in this version: - Theme toggling (Dark/Light) controlled via settings - Fix current location arrow visibility - Compass accuracy alerts - Sensor status indicator - Explicit button for showing the GPS current location - Smooth transitions and many more..…
Jan 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
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i wanted to change the habit of reaching for my phone in the morning and doomscrolling away an hour so i built an app to help me. now i have to literally touch grass before accessing my most distracting apps the app is built in swiftui, uses the screen time apis provided by apple and google vision to recognise grass or not i'd love to get your thoughts on the concept.
2025 · touchgrass.now · its alternatives →
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Compass▲295Ask Slack about your data and get answers instantly in chat
Dec 2025 · compass.dagster.io · its alternatives →
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Hey HN, I built MBCompass, a lightweight, privacy-friendly compass app for Android. It works fully offline, doesn’t ask for unnecessary permissions (no GPS, no internet), and is open source. Most compass apps out there are bloated or ad-heavy. I wanted something clean, fast, and featurish. So I made this! It’s only ~1.7 in size and uses a low-pass filter to smooth sensor readings. I’d love feedback or thoughts – especially from others building simple, privacy-first apps! https://f-droid.org/packages/com.mubarak.mbcompass/…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 8SL
I find myself often texting people, "where are you?" so I wrote this little iPhone app that lets me text them a special link. When they click the link, it uses the HTML5 geolocation API to report their location and shows it on a map. http://whru.at/ It's only as accurate as the HTML5 geolocation API, but I've been finding it pretty useful. What do you think?
2012 · whru.at · its alternatives →
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Sup HN, So I got tired of bouncing between Flightradar, MarineTraffic, and Twitter every time something kicked off globally, so I wrote a dashboard to aggregate it all locally. It’s called Shadowbroker. I’ll admit I leaned way too hard into the "movie hacker" aesthetic for the UI, but the actual pipeline underneath is real. It pulls commercial/military ADS-B, the AIS WebSocket stream (about 25,000+ ships), N2YO satellite telemetry, and GDELT conflict data into a single MapLibre instance. Getting this to run without melting my browser was the hardest part. I'm running this on a laptop…
Mar 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Hey HN! I made Orbit, an iOS app that allows you to see the satellites, planets, and constellations above you in AR, on a 2D map, and on a 3D globe. The app includes more than 15,000 objects tracked by CelesTrack, together with their pass predictions, descriptions, and detailed orbital data. A searchable catalog of all objects is also available, as well as a built-in chatbot designed to answer any space-related questions you might have. This is my first published iOS app, so any feedback is greatly appreciated! App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6772174570
Jul 2026 · nagylukas.github.io · its alternatives →
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AstroAlert▲113Know exactly when satellites pass above you.
Nov 2025 · astroalert.app · its alternatives →
- 13CT
Open any geotagged photo and navigate to the exact place where it was taken. A compass for your photos. Free iPhone app. Works with Photos, Messages, and any image with location data.
2015 · getphotofind.com · its alternatives →
- 14IB
I built this because measuring my age in years felt boring—I wanted to see the kilometers. The first version only used Earth's orbital speed (~30km/s), but the number moved too slowly. To get the "existential dread" feeling, I switched to using the Milky Way's velocity relative to the CMB (~600km/s). The math takes some liberties (using scalar sum instead of vector) to make the speed feel "fast," but it gets the point across. Under the hood, it's a single HTML file with zero dependencies. No React, no build step. The main challenge was the canvas starfield—I had to pre-allocate the…
Jan 2026 · cosmic-odometer.vercel.app · its alternatives →
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This app was designed to answer my wife’s question “what country would we hit if we went straight” (generally posed while pointing her phone) But with two additional twists: 1. It loads up historical maps from different years (right now 1 BC, 700 AD, 1000 AD, 1300 AD, 1800 AD, 1900 AD) so you can see what you would hit if you had a time machine AND you went in the direction your phone is pointing 2. Tap a country/territory for an (AI-generated) blurb on what you are pointing at How it works: Starting from your phone’s bearing, we trace the great-circle in 200 km steps, prefilter…
2025 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
- 16AR
2016 · play.google.com · its alternatives →
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Hello, I am the creator and maintainer of Stellarium Mobile. I have been working in my free time for about a year on this new project Galaxium, that is more about traveling in the universe rather than looking at the sky from Earth. It is still experimental, and at the moment I am not sure what it will become. Feedback is welcome.
Aug 2026 · galaxium.app · its alternatives →
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AstroGrid▲113Explore the entire universe in your browser, in real 3D
Apr 2026 · velonspace.com · its alternatives →
- 19MA
Made a little Artemis II tracker for anyone else who is unnecessarily invested in this mission: https://artemis-ii-tracker.com/ For those of us who apparently need a dedicated place to monitor this mission instead of behaving like well-adjusted people.
Apr 2026 · artemis-ii-tracker.com · its alternatives →
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Dishylink▲92Open-source Starlink monitoring app for Mac, Windows and Web
Aug 2026 · dishylink.com · its alternatives →
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Satellite Tracking and Alignment Resource
2024 · star.conor.link · its alternatives →
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Travel through galaxies into deep space
2016 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →