+Frames compared with Telescopius, Stellarium, SkySafari, PhotoPills and SkyTools

Last updated: 1 November 2026

+Frames is an iOS app for planning deep-sky astrophotography and visual observing. It combines a photographic sky atlas, a nightly target ranking for your own gear, site, horizon, Moon and filters, and project tracking per filter in one app. The table below compares it with the apps most often recommended for these tasks, based on their published documentation and store listings as of October 2026.

	+Frames	Telescopius	Stellarium Plus	SkySafari 8 Pro	PhotoPills	SkyTools 4 Imaging
Type	Sky atlas, target planner, project tracker	Target finder, framing	Planetarium	Planetarium, telescope control	Sun, Moon, Milky Way photo planner	Imaging planner
Platform	iPhone, iPad, iPhone Duo (iOS 18), web	Web, iOS (web app)	iOS, Android	iOS, Android, macOS	iOS, Android	Windows
Price	Lite free, Premium USD 3.99/month or 29.99/year	Free	USD 18.99 once or 1.99/month	USD 34.99 plus Premium subscription	USD 10.99 once	USD 199.95
Photographic sky atlas, Gaia DR3 stars to mag 21	Yes	No own atlas	Yes, to mag 22	Partial, to mag 18, DSS images per object	No	No atlas
Stores your gear, FOV frame on the sky	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Camera FOV calculator only	Yes
Compare several FOV frames at once (+FOV)	Yes, up to 10 (Premium)	No	No, one setup at a time	Yes, several FOV indicators	No	Not documented
Ranks tonight's targets by gear, site, horizon, Moon and filters	Yes, grade A to E	Partial, filters only, no score	No, visibility filter	No, visibility filter	No	Yes, SNR model
Project tracking, hours per filter over several nights	Yes	Not documented	No	No	No	Yes
Export to ASIAIR and NINA	Yes, both	CSV	No	No	No	NINA only
Visual observing: eyepiece FOV, double and variable stars, OpenAstronomyLog export	Yes	Partial, lists	Partial, eyepiece FOV	Partial, double stars, logs	No	Visual editions
Weather, Bortle per site, 8-sector horizon profile	Yes	Weather, horizon	No	Partial, Premium	No	Horizon
AR mode	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
AI assistant: answers questions	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
AI assistant: operates the app, creates and tracks projects	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
Telescope control	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	No
Works offline	Atlas to mag 14, gear, projects, calendar, ranking	Not documented	Reduced data	Not documented	Not documented	Yes
Languages	14	English	22	Not documented	Not documented	English
Account required	No	Yes	Not documented	Not documented	Not documented	No

Competitor entries follow the vendors' own documentation, store listings and forums, October 2026. "Not documented" means we found no statement either way. Vendors update often; corrections to support@plus-frames.com.

What +Frames does not do

No telescope control (Stellarium Plus, SkySafari)
No signal-to-noise or total exposure calculation per target (SkyTools)
No seeing or transparency forecast (Astrospheric); weather is Apple Weather
No Sun, Moon or Milky Way planning over a landscape (PhotoPills)

Astro Buddy, the AI assistant in +Frames

The Astro Buddy is a chat inside the app. It knows the whole app and operates it. Examples of what you can type:

Planning: "What can I shoot tonight with my setup?", "Best target for my 2600 and the Esprit", "When is the next lunar eclipse here?", "Which double stars can I split tonight?"
Objects: "Tell me about NGC 7000", "How long are my subs for M 42 with the L-Ultimate?"
Projects: "Make M 33 a project", "I did 20 subs of Ha on M 45 last night", "Set the OIII target to 6 hours", "Mark M 45 as finished"
Observing logs: "Log an observation on Sirius: seeing 3, faintest star 5.5"
Gear: "I have a ZWO ASI2600MC Air" (the Buddy finds the specs, you tap Save), "Select the ASI2600", "Apply my widefield setup", "Save this as a setup called Widefield"
The app: "Open the Framing card", "Plan the night of 15 October", "Turn off the Milky Way", "Stars down to magnitude 17", "Night vision on", "Switch to Paros", "Rotate the frame to 45 degrees", "Make it a 2 by 2 mosaic"
Locations: "Add a location: Zermatt", "Set its Bortle to 3", "Set its horizon to 10° in the south"
Export: "Export the ASIAIR plan for my M 45 project", "Make a NINA file for M 45", "Export the logs of Mirach"
Weather: "Will it be clear tonight?", "Which of the next nights is clear?"
Plate solving: send a photo with the plus; the image appears at its position in the atlas
Memory: the Buddy keeps your name, plans and gear habits; "Forget that" removes them
Tour: type "tour" for a guided tour of the app
14 languages, dictation

What the Buddy does not do: it never deletes anything, never names brands, shops or prices, and its answers can be wrong. All numbers about your sky come from the app, not from the AI.

Sources

Telescopius: App Store listing, forum: multiple FOV indicators, forum: matching targets to camera and scope, forum: CSV import into NINA
Stellarium: App Store listing, stellarium.org, Field of View Simulator
SkySafari: SkySafari 8 Pro, FOV indicators, comparison chart
PhotoPills: App Store listing, photopills.com
SkyTools: edition comparison, prices
Astrospheric: subscription page
+Frames: Guide, FAQ