Pick a location to see the sky above it tonight: bright stars, constellation lines, the Milky Way band and planet positions, with the galactic core (Milky Way center) marked. Drag and zoom to explore.
How to use
Pick your city, or tick “auto-align” to use GPS directly.
Find the red “galactic core” dot on the map and note which cyan compass label it sits near — on summer nights it is usually in the south.
Head outside, face that direction and hold the phone up against the sky: the pale band running through the core is the Milky Way. Darker skies (see the dark-sky map) show it best.
Put the sky map into the whole plan
The map tells you where to face, but it does not decide whether the sky is dark enough. Before leaving, combine the map with the stargazing score and dark-sky sites so you know both where the objects are and where to wait for them.
Pick your city, or tick “auto-align” to use GPS directly.
Find the red “galactic core” dot on the map and note which cyan compass label it sits near — on summer nights it is usually in the south.
Head outside, face that direction and hold the phone up against the sky: the pale band running through the core is the Milky Way. Darker skies (see the dark-sky map) show it best.
Check tonight's score and dark window before committing.
Choose a low-light site with the right open view.
If a meteor shower or eclipse is active, add the event peak to the route.
When ticked, uses your GPS position and the phone's compass so the map turns with the direction you face — the way you're facing rotates to the bottom of the map. Needs location and motion permission; accuracy varies by device and may drift indoors or before calibration. Nothing touches the sensors unless you tick this.
The solid orange line is the current sun direction — It shows where the sun sits from the pin at the selected time. If it points toward a building, ridge, or horizon, the sun is in that direction.
The orange/red dashed lines are sunrise and sunset — Use them to quickly see which side the sun rises or sets from. For sunset aligned with a street, tower, or bridge opening, start with the sunset line.
Purple lines are moon directions — With the moon layer on, you can see moonrise, moonset, and the selected-time moon bearing. For a large moon shot, the bearing must match and the altitude should match your foreground height.
The cyan dashed line is the galactic core — This helps plan Milky Way compositions. A cyan line toward open sea or a clear southern view is usually better than one toward city glow or a blocked hillside.
Altitude tells you how high it is — The second angle in the right panel is altitude. 0° is near the horizon, around 10° works for low foreground alignments, and high values are harder to pair with landforms.