📍 Tap or click the map to pin a location
Plans stay on this device unless you export or share them. Camera and sensor data are never stored.
Planning chart · selected planning pin
Planning chart uses manual framing and requires no permissions. Start Live AR when you want the guide to follow your phone.
Dark Sky Planner helps photographers plan nighttime shoots of the Milky Way by showing when darkness, a moonless sky, and the galactic core align at any location on a chosen date.
Use the bottom navigation to open Milky Way, Star Trails, Meteor Showers, and Polar Alignment tools. Each tool inherits the Planner pin and date, works offline, can save a local plan, and can open its targets in Sky AR.
Sky AR opens in Planning chart, a camera-free preview with manual framing. Tap Start Live AR when you want the camera guide to follow your phone, then use Freeze overlay to hold a composition for inspection or manual refinement. Choose Planning chart at any time to stop the camera and tracking.
Use current location temporarily replaces the saved planning pin for the open Sky AR session; it never changes the saved plan. Camera, orientation, and location data stay on this device.
After the app is installed or cached, calculations, tools, saved plans, bundled place search, and chart AR continue offline. Previously cached map tiles may appear, but complete offline map coverage is not promised.
Camera frames are never recorded or uploaded. Raw orientation samples and temporary GPS stay in memory and are discarded when AR closes. Tapping the map does not send your coordinates to a geocoder; online place search runs only when you press Search.
Quality ratings:
| Excellent | Long dark & moonless window, galactic core well above horizon |
| Good | Solid window with minimal moon interference |
| Fair | Shorter window or partial moon influence |
| Poor | Very short usable window or significant moonlight |
| No Window | No viable window (full moon, or location/season has no true darkness) |
The Night Timeline: Visual bar showing twilight phases (civil → nautical → astronomical → night), moon presence, and the Milky Way shooting window in cyan. Hover or tap any segment for exact times.
The Shooting Window: The intersection of three conditions: astronomical darkness + moon below horizon + galactic center ≥15° altitude. All three must overlap.
High confidence:
Useful heuristics (not physical laws):