Features
Plan around your own sky.
Your skyline. Your site. Your observing night.
Open plannerWeather forecasts and object photos load from online services.
Your skyline, your horizon.
Capture your skyline with your phone’s camera and motion sensors, draw it by hand, or import a horizon file.
Visibility, calculated.
Find when a target clears your skyline and minimum altitude, for your site and date.
The right targets for tonight.
Compare usable observing windows, inspect targets and account for the Moon.
More planning tools
Sites, rigs and custom targets
Keep observing locations, equipment and custom targets in this browser. Site timezones account for daylight saving time. Add a rig to see how much of the frame each target fills. Explore Tonight, Catalog, Sky View and Horizon using the same selected observing time.
Horizons
On a phone, aim the camera along treetops and roofs while its motion sensors record the skyline. North comes from the compass, the Moon or a landmark. Mark balconies and roof edges that block the sky above. Horizons can be imported and exported as Stellarium and N.I.N.A. text files, and sent to another device with a share link.
Weather and air quality
A four-day weather and air-quality forecast from Open-Meteo. Load it when needed, or enable “Always load on startup.” Requests include the active site’s coordinates and timezone. After weather has been loaded, changing the active site can fetch a new forecast.
Connection requirements
Open the planner online and let its catalog finish loading. Planning can then continue in that open tab without a connection. Reopening or reloading offline is not guaranteed. Weather and uncached external object photos need a connection. See Privacy for the services used.
Your first night
- Choose an observing site and its timezone.
- Select your night and minimum altitude. Add a rig to see how targets fit your camera’s frame.
- Compare usable windows in Tonight and inspect a target at the selected time.
- Add your skyline in Horizon, with your phone, by hand or from a horizon file, to plan around trees and roofs.
- Export a JSON backup from Setup before clearing browser storage or moving devices.