Orbital Radar Library Skylens AR
Augmented reality · free · no app

SKY LENSPoint your phone at the sky. We'll guide you to what's up there.

Sky Lens™ overlays tonight's naked-eye satellite passes on your live camera view and tells you exactly where to look — turn left 38°, tilt up 12° — until the ISS, Tiangong or a Starlink train is in your reticle. Runs in your browser, works offline-ish on a dark hillside, free forever.

No download No account iPhone & Android Your location stays on the device (only coordinates are sent to compute passes)

A GUIDE, NOT JUST AN OVERLAY

Most AR sky apps draw dots and leave you to hunt. Sky Lens picks the pass that matters — live now, or rising soonest — and keeps a card on screen telling you which way to turn and how far to tilt, with little haptic ticks as you get warmer. When it's in your reticle, the ring locks gold.

Solid red ring = passing right now. Dashed ring = where an upcoming pass will rise, with its time. The rail along the bottom is what's up now, next and later — tap any of them to be guided there.

Live pass — follow it
Rises here later
Satellite (cyan) · station (gold)
Sensor quality badge

THREE STEPS

From tap to "there it is" in under a minute. No set-up, nothing to learn.

1

Open it on your phone

Tap Open Sky Lens here or the target button on the Orbital Radar mobile home. Allow motion sensors (so it knows where you point) and, if you like, the camera. No camera? It runs on a dark-sky backdrop instead.

2

Follow the guide card

Sky Lens computes every naked-eye pass for your location in the next 12 hours and guides you to the best one: turn left 38°, tilt up 12°. Off-screen arrows and haptic ticks help you close in.

3

Tap anything for more

Rings open a detail sheet — brightness, altitude, pass window, the ISS crew and a link to the live stream. Set a reminder, track it on the globe, or open the sky map to plan the whole night.

WHAT'S INSIDE

Built for first-timers and for people who own a telescope. The pro tools are there — they just stay out of the way until you want them.

Guided findNEW

Turn/tilt directions and haptic "warmer" ticks to the live pass or the next one up. Tap any object to be guided to it.

Live AR overlay

Rings on the camera view for every naked-eye pass in the next 12 hours, with trails showing where each one is heading.

What's up nowNEW

A rail of live, soon and later passes — ISS, Tiangong, Starlink — at a glance, with minutes-to-rise.

Sky map

An all-sky chart that rotates with you (or stays north-up without sensors), with tonight's passes as arcs and a list with times and directions.

Time Warp

Scrub up to two hours forward or back to see where a pass will be — perfect for planning a photo.

Identify

Point at a moving light and ask. If it's a tracked satellite that is actually up, you get the name; if not, a quick tip on telling satellites from aircraft.

Best time tonight & brightest

The ten-minute window with the most, brightest passes in a dark sky — worked out from the real sun position where you are — plus the brightest object of the night.

Detail sheet & reminders

Brightness, altitude, speed, pass window, ISS crew and the live ISS stream. One tap adds a calendar reminder with a 10-minute alarm.

Capture & share

Grab the camera view with labels baked in and share it straight from your phone.

Night mode, spatial audio, spoken positions

Red-tinted HUD to keep your dark adaptation; hear satellites positioned in space with headphones; have positions read aloud.

Pro HUD & daylight mode

Pitch ladder, elevation scale and constellation lines for the technical crowd; "All station passes" shows daylight ISS/Tiangong passes for radio operators.

Works without camera or sensors

No camera → compass mode on a star field. No motion sensors → the Sky Map opens automatically with the same passes.

WHAT IT WILL — AND WON'T — SHOW

Sky Lens shows the passes you can actually see with your eyes: the ISS, Tiangong, bright Starlink and other large spacecraft, in the hour or two after sunset or before sunrise. It deliberately does not paint the sky with thousands of invisible objects. In daylight it says so, shows a countdown to the next visible pass and lets you set a reminder. Positions come from current orbital elements and are good to a degree or two; your phone's compass is usually the bigger error — the sensor-quality badge tells you how much to trust it.

SCAN TO OPEN SKY LENS

Point your phone's camera at the code — Sky Lens opens in your mobile browser.

Compatibility: any modern smartphone browser. Best on iOS Safari 15+ and Android Chrome 90+. Motion sensors are needed for the AR overlay; without them the Sky Map is used. Desktop browsers can read this page but the AR itself is a phone thing.

Frequently Asked Questions

Yes. Sky Lens overlays the predicted positions of satellites passing over your location onto your phone's live camera view and guides you to them with turn-and-tilt directions. It runs in your mobile browser — nothing to download.
It reads your phone's orientation sensors (compass, gyroscope, accelerometer) and GPS location, computes which passes are visible from there over the next 12 hours, and projects each one onto the camera view as you move.
Every naked-eye pass predicted for your location in the next 12 hours — typically the ISS, Tiangong, bright Starlink satellites and other large spacecraft. "All station passes" adds daylight station passes for radio operators. It deliberately doesn't clutter the sky with objects you can't see.
It opens any time, but satellites are only visible to the eye in the hour or two after sunset or before sunrise, when your sky is dark and the satellite is still sunlit. In daylight Sky Lens tells you so, shows a countdown to the next visible pass and can set a reminder.
No. Sky Lens runs entirely in your mobile browser at orbitalradar.com. No app store, no installation, no account.
Without a camera, Sky Lens runs in compass-only mode on a dark-sky backdrop. Without motion sensors it switches automatically to the Sky Map — an all-sky chart of the same passes with times, directions and elevations.
Pass geometry comes from current orbital elements (TLEs) via the SGP4 model and is typically good to a degree or two; your phone's compass is usually the larger error. The sensor-quality badge tells you how much to trust the overlay, and the guide card keeps correcting as you move.
Completely — no ads, no account, like the rest of Orbital Radar.

LOOK UP — WE'LL POINT

Tonight's passes, your camera, a guide that says which way to turn. Free, in your browser.

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