Privacy Policy

Who we are#

Stellara is published by Walker Interactive LLC ("we", "us", "our"). This policy explains what data Stellara collects, how it is used, and the choices you have. If you have questions, contact us at walkerinteractivellc@gmail.com.

The short version: your device's GPS location and your camera never leave your device, we show ads to people who have not purchased Stellara Pro, and the only things we store on our servers are what you need for an account, chat, and push notifications.

Location — on-device only#

Stellara uses your approximate or precise device location solely to power on-device astronomy calculations — for example, which planets and satellites are above your horizon right now, sunrise and sunset times, and the AR sky overlay. It is also what lets the sky map correct your compass from magnetic north to true north, so objects sit where they really are; that correction comes from the compass already in your phone, is worked out on your phone, and no position is sent anywhere to obtain it. This location data is processed entirely on your device and is never transmitted to our servers, to advertisers, or to any other third party.

One distinction, stated plainly: any internet connection reveals your IP address, from which a general area (roughly a city or region) can be estimated. That is not your device location, but it is location-related, so our Google Play data safety section lists approximate location. It reaches Google through ads, and HeyCatch only if you opt in; both are described below.

You can grant, deny, or revoke location access at any time in your device Settings. If access is not granted, the app falls back to a default location and everything else keeps working.

Camera — AR sky mode#

AR sky mode works fully without your camera: the stars, planets, Sun, Moon, and satellites are positioned using your device's motion sensors and location, not the camera. With the camera on, that sky is drawn over the live view behind it; with the camera off, the same sky is drawn on a black background. When the camera is off, Stellara does not open the camera at all.

When the camera is on, frames are rendered on screen in real time and are never recorded, saved, or transmitted anywhere. Stellara does not take photographs, and it does not request microphone access. You can turn the camera off in AR sky mode itself, or revoke camera access at any time in your device Settings — either way, the rest of the app, including AR sky mode, keeps working.

The "Find it" guide uses the camera the same way, and only if you have already granted camera access — it shows the live view behind a direction arrow purely to help you aim, never recording or transmitting anything. Without camera access it draws the arrow on a plain background instead.

Aligning the sky by sighting a known object works the same way. You centre the Moon or a bright star in the reticle and hold still, and Stellara keeps only the resulting heading offset — a single number, held in memory for the rest of the session, never written to storage and never sent anywhere. Nothing is photographed or recorded, and the alignment works with the camera off.

Advertising#

Stellara is free and is supported by ads. We use Google AdMob to serve banner ads at the bottom of our free browsing screens — such as the catalog, search, galleries, and object detail pages — and an occasional full-screen ad when you open a photo or video (limited to one every few minutes). Ads never appear over the sky map, AR mode, live launch coverage, or the 3D globes.

To serve ads, the Google Mobile Ads SDK may access your device's Advertising ID and other device and ad-interaction information, and it collects your IP address, which can be used to estimate your general area. Google may use this to select and measure ads, and for analytics and fraud prevention, under its own privacy policy. We do not send Google your device's GPS location, your account, or anything you do elsewhere in the app. You can reset or delete your Advertising ID, and opt out of ad personalisation, in Android Settings under Privacy → Ads.

Learn how Google uses this data at https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites

Purchasing Stellara Pro removes all ads.

Purchases#

Stellara Pro is sold through Google Play. Google Play processes the payment — we never see, receive, or store your card details or billing address.

We use RevenueCat to verify your purchase and to keep it working across reinstalls. RevenueCat receives an app-specific user identifier, your purchase receipt, and basic device information (platform and app version). If you are signed in, that identifier is your Stellara account id, so your purchase follows your account across devices and to the web version of Stellara. RevenueCat does not receive your name, email, or location. If you have not purchased anything, the purchase SDK holds nothing about you beyond that identifier.

Push notifications#

Launch reminders, eclipse, meteor-shower, satellite-pass and aurora alerts are all scheduled entirely on your device and never touch our servers — no token, no account, nothing sent to us. Aurora alerts decide whether an aurora could be visible from where you are by comparing the public NOAA forecast against your location on your device; that location is used for the calculation and is never transmitted. Only "live now" alerts register a push token: enabling that switch has Stellara register a push token for your device (via Expo and, on Android, Firebase Cloud Messaging) and store it in our Supabase database so we can deliver those alerts. The token identifies your device installation, not you — it is not linked to your location, your ad activity, or your browsing. Turning "live now" alerts off in Settings removes the stored token.

Account & identity#

By default, Stellara assigns your device an anonymous account identifier so you can use chat and other account-linked features without providing any personal information. You may optionally sign in with an email address or with a Google account; doing so links your existing anonymous identity to that sign-in, so your chat history and reserved handle carry over.

We store only what is needed to authenticate you — your email address (if you sign in with email) and the identifiers returned by Google — through our authentication provider, Supabase.

Chat, handles & presence#

If you use the live chat on a launch broadcast, your chosen display handle and the messages you send are stored in Supabase and associated with your account id, so other viewers can see who posted. Chat messages are automatically purged from our database after 3 days. Please do not share personal or sensitive information in chat.

You can report a chat message or block another user by long-pressing their message. Reporting a message sends it to us for review through our feedback system (see “Feedback, bug reports & support” below); the report includes that message’s text and the sender’s handle and account id so we can act on it. Blocking is stored only on your own device — it hides that person’s messages for you and is not shared with our servers or with them.

While a broadcast page is open, the app also joins a realtime presence channel so viewers can see how many people are watching. That channel broadcasts only your anonymous account id and the time you joined; it is not stored.

The home screen shows that same count beside each live broadcast in the list. To do it, the app reads those presence channels without announcing you on them, and only while the home screen is actually open — so you are only ever counted while you genuinely have a broadcast open, never for browsing the home screen. If your device has no account yet, the app does not create one just to show a count; it simply shows none.

Feedback, bug reports & support#

When you use Send feedback, Report a bug, or Contact us, we store what you write, together with your app version, platform, device model, and your anonymous account id, so that a bug report is actually actionable. Giving us an email address is optional — we only ask for one so we can reply, and you can send feedback without it.

Your submission is stored in our Supabase database and emailed to us through Resend, our email delivery provider. Please do not include personal or sensitive information in the message itself; only tell us what we need to fix the problem.

If you delete your account, your feedback is unlinked from you — your account id is erased from it — but the report itself is kept, because we may still be working on the bug it describes. Once unlinked it no longer identifies you, unless you typed something identifying into the message. If you want a submission removed entirely, email us and we will delete it.

Stored on your device only#

Most of what Stellara remembers never leaves your phone. Your saved favorites, alert preferences and history, launch reminders, sky-map settings and AR calibration, whether night mode is on and how strong its tint is, your chosen bottom-bar shortcuts, the zodiac sign you pick for the horoscope and the horoscope readings you have opened (so you can look back at them), which daily notifications you chose and at what time, the birth date, optional time and optional birthplace (rounded to about 1 km) you enter for the Birth map (used only to calculate the sky on that day, on your phone), display name, unit preference, onboarding progress, a small count of how often you have opened the app and shared a card (used only to decide whether to offer you the Play rating prompt, and never sent anywhere), and a 24-hour cache of astronomy data are all stored in your device's local app storage. We cannot see any of it. Someone else’s birth details entered in Compatibility are not stored at all: they stay in memory only while that screen is open and are never sent anywhere. Uninstalling the app, or clearing its storage in Android Settings, erases all of it.

Analytics & diagnostics#

Where enabled, Stellara uses Aptabase for anonymous product analytics, Sentry for crash and error diagnostics, and — only if you opt in — HeyCatch for usage analytics. All three are optional and are only active in builds configured with their keys.

Analytics is deliberately minimal. We send a short, fixed list of events: which screen you opened, that a sign-in happened, that notifications were turned on, and — so we can tell which features people find worth paying for — that the Pro upgrade screen was opened and whether a purchase was started, completed, cancelled or restored. These record the name of the feature involved and which plan was chosen; they never include prices, payment details, identifiers, content, or location, and there is no cross-app or cross-site tracking. (This paragraph describes Aptabase, which uses no device identifier. HeyCatch, below, is different and is off unless you turn it on.)

HeyCatch usage analytics is off by default. Stellara asks once, after the intro, whether you would like to share anonymous usage data, and you can change your answer at any time in Settings → Share anonymous usage data. Until you say yes, nothing is collected and no identifier is created. If you say yes, the app sends the name of each feature screen you open (for example "globe" or "launch" — never a specific item, title or search) and when the app is opened or moved to the background, together with a random device identifier generated by the analytics software, your approximate device information (model, operating system and app version, and language setting), and your IP address as part of the connection. We never send your name, email address, account identifier, your device's GPS location, or anything you type, and Stellara does not record your taps or screen contents.

HeyCatch is operated from the United States and is not certified under the EU–US Data Privacy Framework, so if you are in the EEA, the UK or Switzerland your data is transferred to and processed in the United States under the safeguards HeyCatch describes in its privacy policy (heycatch.ai/privacy). HeyCatch acts as our processor; its policy says it may use this data to power the analytics and AI-assisted insight features it provides to us, and that it keeps it while our subscription is active and for two months afterwards. Turning the setting off stops collection immediately and discards the device identifier on your phone. To ask us to delete data already collected, write to walkerinteractivellc@gmail.com. Because the identifier is random and not linked to your account, we may need to ask you for it to find your data.

Sentry receives crash and error reports, plus a sample of performance traces (about one session in five), to help us find slow screens and bugs. Reports may include the device model, OS version, app version, a stack trace, and technical detail about the failure itself — for example a database error code and the message it came with. Identifiers are stripped before a report leaves your device: account ids and push tokens are replaced with "[redacted]", including where they appear inside an error message.

Third-party content in the app#

Stellara embeds live launch webcasts from YouTube. YouTube runs inside the app's embedded browser view and may set its own cookies and collect viewing data under Google's privacy policy — the same as watching the video on YouTube itself.

Links to outside sites (observatories, NASA pages, mission sites) open in a secure in-app browser. Once you follow one, that site's privacy policy governs, not ours.

When you share a pass, stat, or moon-phase card, Stellara hands the generated image to your device's share sheet and it goes only to the app you pick — we do not see or store what you share or who you send it to.

Third parties we use#

Stellara relies on these providers to operate: Supabase (database, authentication, chat and feedback storage), Expo and Firebase Cloud Messaging (push delivery), Google (optional sign-in), Google AdMob (advertising), RevenueCat and Google Play (purchases), Resend (delivering your feedback and bug reports to us by email), Aptabase (optional anonymous analytics), HeyCatch (usage analytics, only if you opt in) and Sentry (optional crash diagnostics). Each processes data only as needed to provide its service to us and is bound by its own privacy terms.

The astronomy data Stellara displays — NASA, JPL, NOAA, Launch Library, Celestrak, SatNOGS, SIMBAD, Wikipedia and others — is fetched by your device from public sources. Those requests carry your IP address, as any web request does, and are logged by those providers under their own policies. They receive nothing else from us about you.

To tell you when a newer version is available, the app asks the Google Play app on your phone. Google Play handles that under its own terms, using details such as your device type and app version; it does not involve Stellara’s servers.

The daily, weekly and monthly horoscope readings are fetched by your device from FreeHoroscopeAPI (freehoroscopeapi.com). That request carries your IP address and the zodiac sign you chose, and nothing that identifies you. FreeHoroscopeAPI is a third party and handles it under its own terms; Stellara’s servers do not see or store these readings.

Data retention#

Chat messages are retained for 3 days, then purged automatically. Push-token data is removed as soon as you turn notifications off, or when you delete your account, whichever comes first. Account and profile-handle data are retained until you delete your account. Feedback and bug reports are retained for as long as they are useful to us, and are unlinked from your account if you delete it. Analytics and diagnostic data are retained only as long as needed to operate and improve the app. Advertising and purchase data are retained by Google and RevenueCat under their own retention policies.

Your rights & account deletion#

You can permanently delete your account and its data at any time from Settings → Account → Delete my account & data. This removes, from our servers, your account, your chat messages, your reserved handle, and your push token; and it erases, from your device, your favorites, alert preferences, reminders, sky settings, bottom-bar shortcuts, horoscope sign and saved readings, birth date, display name, chat handle, and cached user data. (Astronomy data cached only for performance — satellite orbital elements, asteroid data — is not user data and is not tied to your deletion.) This action cannot be undone.

One exception, stated plainly: any feedback or bug report you sent us is not deleted. Its link to you is severed — your account id is erased from it — but the report itself is kept so we can finish fixing what you told us about. Email us if you want a submission deleted outright.

A Stellara Pro purchase is billed to your Google Play account, so it survives deletion — you can restore it with "Restore purchases" at any time. Deleting your account does not cancel a subscription, which you manage in Google Play. If you were signed in when you bought Pro, RevenueCat holds a purchase record keyed by your former account id under its own retention policy; email us and we will ask RevenueCat to erase it.

You may also contact us at walkerinteractivellc@gmail.com to request deletion, request a copy of your data, or ask any question about it.

Children's privacy#

Stellara is intended for people aged 13 and over. It shows advertising and contains live user chat, and it is not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, contact us at walkerinteractivellc@gmail.com and we will remove it.

Changes to this policy#

We may update this policy from time to time. Material changes will be reflected by updating the date at the top of this document. Continued use of Stellara after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the revised policy.

Contact#

Walker Interactive LLC — walkerinteractivellc@gmail.com