Nightshift - Stargazing & celestial events

Nightshift is designed to help you identify optimal evenings for stargazing, guide you in observing your favorite planets, meteor showers, and deep-sky phenomena, and provide updates on celestial occurrences visible tonight. This free night sky app caters to both seasoned amateur astronomers and casual stargazers alike!

Overview of Features

☆ Global stargazing conditions and forecasts

☆ Sky view and star chart features

☆ Calendar of celestial events and astronomy highlights

☆ Access to over 15,000 deep-sky objects

☆ Advanced predictions for object visibility tailored to your telescopes

Clear skies and darkness: weather forecast for stargazing

Get forecasts for darkness and cloud cover for any location globally to find the best viewing opportunities tonight. A twilight diagram provides a quick overview of darkness, weather, and observing conditions for any night. Receive alerts when favorable conditions arise at your chosen observing spots.

Sky view and star chart

Utilize the new sky view feature to navigate the night sky and observe planets, deep-sky objects, and celestial phenomena at optimal times. Zoom in to find faint objects and use telrad circles to create finder charts that assist in quickly locating your desired targets with a telescope.

Stay informed about tonight's highlights

Astronomy events, visible planets, active meteor showers, noctilucent clouds, moon phases, oppositions, elongations, lunar eclipses, and rise/set times are all accessible through the app's main dashboard.

Save your preferred stargazing locations

Create a collection of your favorite observing sites to receive tailored advice regarding darkness, cloud coverage, and visibility of celestial bodies specific to each location.

Moon phases and lunar eclipses

Discover the current phase of the Moon as well as the precise timings for the next full moon, new moon, and quarter phases. Nightshift aids in planning ideal moments for lunar observations or helps avoid interference from moonlight during deep-sky observation sessions. The app includes a calendar detailing every partial and total lunar eclipse from 1801 to 2200 and offers location-specific guidance on the visibility of blood moons from your favorite stargazing site.

Planets of the solar system

Nightshift displays all visible planets for tonight along with their respective constellations to facilitate quick identification in the night sky. The event calendar precisely indicates when the next oppositions of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune will occur, allowing for straightforward planning of planetary observation sessions. For Venus and Mercury, the app shows the timing of greatest elongation, helping determine optimal visibility for morning and evening observations of these inner planets. Additionally, a twilight diagram for all planets indicates the best nights for viewing and suggests the appropriate telescopes for observation.

Access to over 15,000 deep-sky objects

The app boasts an extensive database of deep-sky objects, encompassing the entire Messier, Caldwell, NGC, and IC catalogues. A darkness and clear sky diagram indicates favorable conditions for observing your favored galaxies, globular clusters, nebulae, and more marvels of deep space.

Comprehensive information from renowned catalogs

Detailed insights into all celestial objects include classification, brightness, angular size, distance, and references to other astronomy databases.

Visibility predictions for telescopes, binoculars, and naked eyes

Cutting-edge algorithms assess whether celestial objects are observable with your equipment. The visibility calculator allows you to check if your preferred planet, galaxy, or other celestial body can be seen using your own telescopes or binoculars.

Explore the realm of astronomy

Begin your stargazing adventure tonight with Nightshift and stay updated on the captivating events unfolding in the night sky!

Nightshift FAQ

Q: Why is the stargazing forecast wrong?

A: Follow these steps to increase your chances of finding the best clear nights:

- Check your location

Make sure your location is correct. The name or the coordinates of the location are shown on the bottom bar, and a map of the location can be found in the menu (hamburger icon). By default, Nightshift launches with your current location but additional locations can be added in Menu > Observing locations.

- Update the weather forecast frequently

Make sure the weather update frequency is set to 1 hour in Menu > Settings to get the latest forecast as soon as possible.

- Check other weather sources

Compare the forecast in Nightshift with other, preferrably local, forecasts. On the Weather card on the Forecast tab, a link to a website comparing several weather models can be found under Weather tools. This will give you a much better idea of the conditions on a given night.

- Check the cloud cover satellite images

The actual cloud cover of the last hours can be studied on the Now tab.

- Understand how Nightshift calculates stargazing conditions

Besides weather, Nightshift also takes other factors into account when calculating the conditions for a given night. One of them is the duration of darkness. So if the Moon is up, or the nights are short due to summer time, it is possible that the forecasted conditions are not good even though it’s a clear night.

- Last but not least: weather forecasting is not an exact science

Nightshift uses the weather forecast from OpenWeatherMap. Although weather models are improved all the time, it’s still difficult to accurately predict cloud cover from hour to hour. If the forecast is wrong, you can disable it in Menu > Settings.