Saturn live wallpaper for Mac
Saturn, rings and all.
Saturn and its rings rendered live in 3D behind your desktop icons, lit by the Sun and turning at its real rate. Set it off to one side with room for your icons, circle it slowly, keep a crescent, or look back at it from one of its moons.
Animated in real time · One-time purchase, every wallpaper included · macOS 12 or later, Apple silicon and Intel
An Apple-verified version is coming soon as a free update. Until then, macOS asks you to confirm the app once, the first time you open it, and your download page shows how.
Views
Frame Saturn for your desktop.
Pick how it sits on the screen from the View menu, and how far out with Zoom. Every picture here is a frame from the animated wallpaper.
Crescent
The Sun behind the planet: Saturn a thin crescent, and the rings crossing in front of its night side.
From its moon
Saturn from just behind one of its moons, the one that sees it most lit. Its moons orbit in the plane of the rings, so from there the rings narrow to a thin line.
Whole disc
The whole planet and its rings, the gaps between them showing, and Saturn’s shadow falling across the rings behind it.
Off to the left, at Far zoom
Saturn small on the left with the rest of the desktop open. Zoom stands every view further out in three steps.
What you see
The rings, with their shadows.
The rings are drawn as their own lit surface, with the gaps between them. Saturn casts its shadow across them on the side away from the Sun, and the rings lay their shadow across its bands.
The bands come from maps made of NASA’s images, and the planet turns at its real rate, about once every ten and a half hours. In the side views the planet and its rings fill a little over half the height of the screen, the lit side facing the open part of the desktop.
From its moon puts the camera just behind Titan, Rhea, Dione or Enceladus, whichever sees Saturn most lit when the wallpaper starts, and looks back at the planet past the moon’s edge.
Rings and shadows
The rings with their gaps, Saturn’s shadow across them, and their shadow on its bands.
Its own day
The planet turns at its real rate, about ten and a half hours a turn, as the camera drifts slowly round it.
Eight ways to frame it
The top half, off to the left or right, the whole disc, a crescent, over the limb, a slow orbit, or from one of its moons, each at Close, Medium or Far.
Made to stay on
Made to run all day, quiet when hidden.
Under your icons
It sits beneath the desktop icons, widgets and the Dock. Clicks go straight through to the desktop, and it never takes focus from what you are doing.
Pauses on its own
When windows cover the desktop, a full-screen app is open, the screen locks or sleeps, or a screensaver starts, it stops drawing until the desktop shows again.
Easy on the battery
On battery or in Low Power Mode it drops to 15 frames a second, or pauses, whichever you pick. Its usual pace is 30.
Pick your world
The other live wallpapers.
One purchase gets every one of them, over 80 in all, and you switch between them from the menu bar.
Questions
Good to know.
Is the Saturn wallpaper animated?
Yes. It is a live 3D scene: the camera drifts slowly round Saturn, or circles it in Slow orbit, and the planet turns at its real rate.
Which view suits a desktop full of icons?
Off to the left or Off to the right put the planet and its rings to one side and leave the rest of the desktop open. macOS lines desktop icons up on the right unless you move them, so Off to the left keeps Saturn clear of them.
Can I see Saturn’s moons?
From its moon frames Saturn from just behind Titan, Rhea, Dione or Enceladus, with the moon’s edge in the foreground.
Do I only get Saturn?
One purchase of $2.99 is the whole app: every planet, the Sun, the Moon and Pluto, the Milky Way, the black hole, the ISS and the grand tour, over 80 wallpapers in all.
Will it slow my Mac down?
It is made to stay on all day. It draws 30 frames a second at the display’s normal resolution, stops completely when windows cover the desktop or the screen locks or sleeps, and on battery drops to 15 frames a second or pauses, whichever you pick.
Which Macs does it run on?
Any Mac on macOS 12 Monterey or later, Apple silicon or Intel. Everything it shows is inside the app, so it runs offline.
