Original Summary

I’m Colin. I’m a chef living and working on Sark in the Channel Islands. About seven weeks ago I launched an Android app called NAKED EYE. I’m not a professional developer or astronomer. I built it because I kept finding out about things like meteor showers, ISS passes, planets and aurora after I’d already missed them. The question I wanted answered wasn’t: “What’s in the universe?” It was: “What’s actually worth seeing tonight?” “When should I go outside?” “Where should I look?” So I built around that. NAKED EYE uses your location, local conditions, alerts and directional guidance to try to remove the faff between “something interesting is happening” and actually going outside to see it. Seven weeks in, the numbers are still small — but they’re real: 552 genuine Google Play installs 447 active devices 4.83 Play rating 19.3K Play impressions in the last 28 days Play impressions up 209% The app now has users in the UK, US, Canada, Australia and a growing number of other countries. The weirdest part is that people are actually starting to use it the way I imagined. I’ve had the app warn me about an ISS pass, gone outside and watched it appear. It gave me a sunset-colour alert, I went outside, and the sky lit up afterwards. I’m now getting screenshots and photos back from other users after the app has got them outside too. That part probably means more to me than the download number. A few other things have happened that I genuinely didn’t expect. Local press picked the story up. My hometown magazine gave NAKED EYE a full-page feature and even mentioned it on the front cover. Astronomy creators and editors have started replying to me. And Google Play itself has started showing the app much more than it did at launch. The problem now is distribution. Once people actually reach the Play page, the app converts reasonably well. But I’m still only averaging around 40-ish store visitors each day. I’d love to get that closer to 100–130 visitors each day, because that’s roughly where 15–20 installs each day starts becoming realistic. So that’s the bit I’m learning now: Building the app was one problem. Getting the right people to discover it is a completely different one 😂 Tonight is actually a perfect example of why I built it. Saturn is at opposition, so NAKED EYE can tell someone whether it’s worth going outside, when to look, and then Target Lock helps point them in the right direction. That is basically the whole idea in one night. I’d genuinely love feedback from people who’ve built something small and managed to break out of the “few hundred users” stage. What actually moved the needle for you? Creators? Press? Reddit? Paid ads? App-store discovery? Something else entirely? I’m not pretending I’ve cracked anything yet. 552 installs is tiny compared with the big astronomy apps. But I’m proud as hell that hundreds of strangers now have something on their phone that I built around kitchen shifts on a tiny island 😂 Google Play: https://play.google.com/

中文概览

中文标题： 我是小岛上的厨师，7周前上线了一款天文应用；以下是后续情况

作者Colin是萨克岛厨师，约7周前上线Android天文应用NAKED EYE，帮用户判断今晚值得看什么、何时何地出门观测。现有552次安装、447台活跃设备、4.83评分，28天1.93万次展示且增长209%，用户来自英美加澳等。虽有媒体报道与创作者关注，但日均商店访客约40，他希望提升到100–130，并询问如何突破几百用户阶段。

  • 情报分类：开源项目与落地
  • 分类依据：独立开发者分享天文应用上线后的安装、评分、分发与增长情况。
  • 信息来源：Reddit · SideProject
  • 发布时间：2026/10/4 22:46:27