The complete
Field Manual.

Every score here is a forecast: here's how much to trust one.

Everywhere a percentage or score appears

Arclight, Bio Blue, Emberlight, Milky Way, comet, meteor and aurora numbers are probabilities computed from weather models, space-weather feeds and astronomy math. Models are imperfect, feeds can be stale or wrong, and the sky is under no obligation to agree. Treat a high score as a reason to go look, not a promise, and a low score as a reason to check the sky yourself before writing the night off: some of the best conditions arrive unforecast. Verify with your own eyes and local knowledge, then go anyway. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

Save up to six places you shoot; tonight is scored for each.

Settings gear → Favorite Locations

Search any city, ZIP code, or landmark to add a spot: every place you add is also kept under Your Places, so you can swap it back in later. One spot gives a quick go-or-not; up to six lets you compare. Drag to reorder: the first spot leads your briefing and sets the app's accent color. You also pick spots during first launch. Edits apply with tomorrow's report, or tap Run Today's Report Now in the pending-changes banner to apply them right away.

Tell the app what you like to shoot so it shows the right cards.

Settings gear → Photography Styles

Pick any of Milky Way & Nightscapes, Moon, Aurora, Coastal, Sunrise & Sunset, and Landscapes. Your picks decide which cards and report sections appear and what the briefing emphasizes; the first pick sets the app's accent color. You also choose styles during first launch. Changes apply with tomorrow's report, or run today's again from the pending-changes banner.

One 0–100 number and a verdict: is tonight worth the drive?

Today tab → the big card at the top

The score blends sky, weather, moon, and timing for the styles you picked: higher means fewer compromises. The pill in the corner is the verdict, and with more than one spot the card names tonight's best one. While live data is still loading it says “Syncing live conditions…” instead of showing a made-up number. The score and verdict are free; tap the card for that spot's full breakdown (Pro).

Your daily report: the verdict first, then every card behind it.

Today tab

Top to bottom: Signals (your alert inbox), warnings, any rare sky event you shouldn't miss, the verdict card, then the Sky Cover and Scout Nearby tiles. Below sit your spots, weather chips, mountain weather, fall color, tides, Bio Blue, aurora, Arclight, the comet spotlight, Today's Insight, the Daily Report, and a line saying when data was updated. Cards appear only when they matter for your spots and styles. The header holds red light, run report, Field Log, and the settings gear. It refreshes when you open the app and on a steady rhythm while open; pull down to force it. Everything below the verdict card is Pro; warnings stay free.

The full written field brief behind today's verdict.

Today tab → Daily Report card

Tap “Read the full field brief” for the long-form report, one section per topic: Weather & Transparency, Moon & Lunar Light, Milky Way Window, Meteor Watch, planet pairings, Aurora Watch, Tides & Coast Risk, Coming Up, a Field Prescription, and more depending on your styles. Today's Insight just above it is the one-paragraph summary. The run-report button in the header rebuilds it with fresh data; past reports live in the Field Log. (Pro.)

Compare all your saved places and see which one wins tonight.

Today tab → Your Spots

Shows when you have two or more spots. Each row gives the cloud summary, wind, and the Emberlight color score for the next sunset (or sunrise, once sunset has passed), with a BEST badge on tonight's winner. Tap a row: or the verdict card: for that spot's full breakdown: sunrise and sunset color, cloud cover by height, wind, rain chance, and a Bortle darkness estimate. (Pro.)

Moon phase, rise and set times, and this month's dark nights.

Today tab → tap MOON % on the top card

Shows today's illumination, phase, moonrise and moonset, and a month calendar: tap any day for its phase and rise time. Nights marked DARK CORE NIGHT have the Milky Way core up with the moon out of the way. It also lists the moon's closest approach (perigee), the full moon's traditional name, and the next supermoon. The moon chip in the weather row opens it too. Free from the top card.

Official weather, tide and space-weather warnings: always free.

Today tab → amber banner near the top

National Weather Service alerts for your saved spots and current location (US), king-tide and minus-tide flags from NOAA predictions for your beach, and NOAA space-weather watches share one banner: plus a live storm banner the moment the aurora reaches G1, even before the official bulletin. Tap for the full text, photographer-relevant alerts first, with what to do and who issued it. When nothing is active an all-clear card says the sky is being monitored. If the warning services can't be reached within about 20 seconds, the card says Couldn't check warnings instead: never an all-clear: and a tap retries. Always follow official guidance.

Rare sky events you can see from your spots, pinned on top.

Today tab → DON'T MISS THIS banner

When a rare event visible from where you are is close: an eclipse, a meteor-shower peak, a close planet pairing, a notable full moon: a banner sits above the verdict so you can't scroll past it. Tap it for the details. On an ordinary night it simply isn't there.

Traveling? Find good photo spots around you tonight.

Today tab → Scout Nearby tile

Scout finds scenic spots: dark skies, coast access, viewpoints: within 25, 50, or 100 miles of your GPS and ranks them by tonight's conditions for what you shoot. Tap a spot for the real drive time (it warns about ferries and long detours) and Directions in Maps. Tap “Run reports for the top 4” to load them into a temporary Today briefing; the SCOUT NEARBY banner shows you're scouting and MY SPOTS takes you back. Your saved places are never changed. With no signal, spots still come from the on-device atlas. (Pro.)

Every past briefing, kept exactly as it was written.

Today tab → clock icon in the header

Tonight's briefing files itself here tomorrow. Open any past day to read the full report as it was issued: useful for learning which forecasts paid off. (Pro.)

When you travel, the app's clock follows you.

Today tab → LOCAL chip beside the date

When your phone's GPS puts you in a different time zone than your lead spot, a LOCAL chip appears by the date and “now” follows your local travel time. Each saved spot's times still read in that spot's own zone, and the Map Planner uses the pin's local time.

Tonight's plan as one poster you can read at a glance.

Field Guide tab

A single vintage-style poster over the night scene: the date, moon illumination, TONIGHT'S MOVE at your best spot, condition blocks, any DON'T MISS THIS event, a Coming Up strip, and your spots with temperature, wind, and rain chance. It reads the same live briefing as Today. Free.

What's worth shooting on any night, when, and how high.

Sky tab → Plan a shot → NIGHT SKY

Pick a night and every target is rated for your location, best first: Prime, Fair, Moon-washed, Too low, or Below horizon. The list covers the Moon, the Milky Way core, about twenty nebulae, galaxies and clusters (Lagoon, Eagle, Andromeda, Orion, Pleiades, Veil and more), plus any bright comet. Tap a target for its shooting window, an altitude chart against the moon, framing at your lens, the longest shutter before stars trail (NPF rule), and field advice. The Map Planner and Shot Alignment Finder open from the top. (Pro.)

Plan the giant-moon-behind-a-landmark shot: lens and distance.

Sky tab → Plan a shot → NIGHT SKY → Moon

Set your camera sensor and focal length, your subject's height, and how big the moon should look beside it: the planner says how far back to STAND and shows the frame. Tick the supermoon option to plan for a perigee moon. It also shows tonight's phase and the moon's path. Shoot at moonrise or moonset, when the moon sits low and glows warm; a long lens from far away makes it huge. (Pro.)

See where the sun, moon, and Milky Way will be before you leave.

Sky tab → Plan a shot → MAP PLANNER

With CAMERA selected, tap the map (or search a place) to drop your camera pin. The slider scrubs any minute of the day in 5-minute steps; the arrows step a day, tapping the date jumps anywhere, and the clock button returns to now. Lines show where the sun, moon, and Milky Way core sit at that minute: dashed lines are their rise and set bearings: and the deck reads each one's height and direction plus sunrise, sunset, moonrise, moonset and core-peak times in the pin's own time zone. EVENTS lists every rise, set and core time. Add a SUBJECT pin for your landmark, tap AR for Live View from the pin, LENS for Lens Tools, and SAVE THIS PLAN to keep it. (Pro.)

Put your landmark on the map and measure the shot to it.

Map Planner → SUBJECT

Tap SUBJECT, then tap the landmark: or search it by name (known peaks and lighthouses fill in their height automatically). Set its profile, height or summit elevation, and your own elevation in the sheet (the sliders button reopens it). The map draws the sight line with distance, bearing, how tall the subject stands in degrees, and how big the moon will look next to it. With a subject set, VIEWFINDER opens the frame. (Pro.)

Preview the shot at the real size of your lens and landmark.

Sky tab → Plan a shot → VIEWFINDER

Choose a camera position and subject, then pick your lens: tap one of your focal lengths (edit the list to match your kit), add a teleconverter, and turn on frame lines to see your longer lenses nested inside. The readout shows altitude, azimuth, lens and 35 mm equivalent; TRACK draws where the sun, moon or core travels around that minute, and the day strip scrubs the clock. The frame shows the REAL terrain from elevation data: a mountain is its own profile, ridges in front of it are where they really are, and the moon disappears behind the mountain when it really would. It warns when the ground or the curve of the Earth hides your subject (and how much higher you'd have to stand), tells you when the moon or sun actually clears the skyline, and measures your ground and the subject's. Terrain loads once per place and works offline afterwards; it's bare earth, so trees and buildings aren't in it. At night the frame shows the sky your lens will face: the Milky Way band is NASA's survey of the galaxy's light, placed for your exact place and time and dimmed by the Moon and twilight as the night will dim it, under the real stars in their own colours. (Pro.)

Work backward from the photo you want to where you should stand.

Sky tab → Plan a shot → FIND THE SPOT

Pick the landmark, target, lens, and framing. Shutter Scout calculates a camera position and time for the alignment, then checks each spot's line of sight against real terrain: and when a ridge is in the way, finds the nearest clear point on the same line, so the alignment still holds. Picking a result moves the camera pin there and reopens the Viewfinder at that minute. Also a button inside the Viewfinder. (Pro.)

Find when the sun, moon, or Milky Way crosses your landmark.

Viewfinder → ALIGNMENT

Choose the sun, moon, or Milky Way core and it scans the next 60 nights for moments it passes behind, over, or along the edge of your subject from where you stand: checked against the real skyline. Open a result to set the map and clock to that composition. Never look at the sun through a lens. (Pro.)

When will the sun, moon, or core line up with a bearing?

Sky tab → Plan a shot → NIGHT SKY → Shot Alignment Finder

Pick the sun, moon, or Milky Way core, then enter the subject's compass bearing (or choose a catalog subject): tick “I know the subject's height” to require the body to sit over its top rather than just cross the bearing. Choose 30, 45, or 60 days ahead and it lists every alignment with date, time, altitude and moon illumination. (Pro.)

Keep a composition: place, date, time, and subject: to reopen later.

Map Planner → Plans (top right)

After placing the camera pin and setting the clock, tap SAVE THIS PLAN (or SAVE) and name it. A plan keeps the pin, minute, lens, and the Viewfinder's orientation and aim, plus what the sky should be doing to your subject. Open Plans and tap VIEW ON MAP to restore everything; plans with a subject reopen in the Viewfinder. Press and hold a plan to delete it. Each plan can also be saved for offline use. (Pro.)

Take a saved plan into places with no cell signal.

Map Planner → Plans → SAVE OFFLINE

On any saved plan tap SAVE OFFLINE: the app downloads the terrain, the Live View skyline, and a forecast snapshot around your shoot time, then checks every piece before it says READY FOR AIRPLANE MODE. If something is missing it says INCOMPLETE with a RETRY. Terrain stays until you delete it; forecasts expire on their own, so tap REFRESH before you lose signal. The Offline button lists every package with its size against a 1 GB limit, and DELETE removes a package without deleting the plan. Sun, moon and star positions never need a download. (Pro.)

Camera math: what's sharp, where to focus, how long to expose.

Map Planner → LENS

Uses the lens and sensor from your Viewfinder kit (a chip here is a what-if that doesn't change the kit). DEPTH OF FIELD: set aperture and focus distance to see the near and far limits of sharpness: choose standard or critical sharpness for big prints. HYPERFOCAL: the distance to focus at so everything from half that distance to the horizon is sharp: the landscape shooter's shortcut. ND FILTER: set your metered shutter speed and the filter's stops (ND8 = 3, ND64 = 6, ND1000 = 10) for the long-exposure time. STAR-TRAIL LIMIT: the longest shutter before stars smear, by the accurate NPF rule next to the old 500 rule. Distances follow your Celsius setting (feet or metres): the M and FT chips switch them here. (Pro.)

The best hour to shoot in the next 48 hours, and why.

Sky tab → HOURLY

Choose the shot: Milky Way, star trails, aurora, sunset/sunrise, or moonrise: and a 48-hour timeline scores every hour with a GUIDE number from high, mid and low cloud, moon height and brightness, darkness, and other forecast inputs. Green columns mark the best window, copper the best alternative; tap an hour for its numbers. The guide is a rules-based rule of thumb, not a probability, and hours more than a day out are the least certain. After a window passes, HOW WAS IT? lets you rate it: ratings stay on this device and build YOUR RATINGS. (Pro.)

When the Milky Way's bright core is up in a dark, moon-free sky.

Sky tab → Milky Way Core card

In core season a dusk-to-dawn chart shows the core's height against the moon, with the dark WINDOW, the core's PEAK altitude and direction, MOON illumination, and the longest shutter before stars trail for your saved lens (NPF). In the fall shoulder season, when the core sets early and the winter sky rises late, it recommends BOTH: core first, winter targets later, one night, two sessions. When the core is out of season the card hands over to deep-sky targets. Tap the card for Sky Tonight. (Pro.)

The core takes winters off. Your camera doesn't have to.

Sky tab → Milky Way Core card (off-season)

When the galactic core is out of season, the card promotes the deep-sky roster for the season: the Winter Milky Way (the fainter outer arm through Auriga), Orion with M42 and Barnard's Loop, Andromeda, the Pleiades and their blue dust, the Double Cluster, the California Nebula, and the Rosette. Each gets a real imaging window during astronomical darkness, a peak altitude and bearing, moon interference, and field advice: lens, exposure, and what actually makes the shot. The Winter Milky Way is roughly 10× fainter than the summer core, so the advice leans on stacking and dark skies rather than heroic single exposures. (Pro.)

Every deep-sky target up tonight, best first, with details.

Sky tab → Milky Way Core card → ALL TARGETS

The card shows the top three targets; tap one, or ALL TARGETS · DETAILS, for the full pop-out list rated the same way as the Night Sky Planner: imaging window, peak altitude and direction, moon interference, and what lens and exposure work. SEE THEM ON THE SKY DOME shows where they sit in tonight's sky. (Pro.)

The real sky over your location: tap anything to identify it.

Sky tab → tap the Milky Way Core card

Drag the amber slider to scrub dusk to dawn, and NOW to come back. Switch DOME (the whole sky overhead) or HORIZON (one direction: drag to look around). Tap a star, planet, the Moon or a deep-sky object to identify it with live altitude and bearing; reticles mark tonight's targets and meteor radiants. LIVE jumps into Live View to see the same sky over your camera. The Milky Way is NASA's survey of the galaxy's light, placed for your exact place and time and dimmed by the Moon and twilight as the night will dim it; the stars are the real sky to magnitude 6.5 in their own colours. The whole sky is drawn in every season: the full band, 21 constellation figures, every star; when the core never rises (roughly October to February in the Northern Hemisphere) the reticles switch to the winter targets: the Winter Milky Way through Auriga, Orion with M42, and Andromeda. (Pro.)

Moon, wind, rain, aurora, and golden, blue and dark hours.

Sky tab → condition tiles, Light & Dark card

Four tiles: MOON (percent lit and phase), WIND (speed, gusts, and whether a star tracker is viable), PRECIP (overnight chance plus dew risk for your lens), and AURORA (Kp now and the 24-hour peak). The Light & Dark card lists sunrise, golden hour, sunset, blue hour, astronomical twilight, true astronomical dark, and morning twilight for your lead spot. Below, the sky-potential grid scores sunrise and sunset color at each spot: tap one for its breakdown. (Pro.)

Peak nights, shooting windows, and moon interference for your sky.

Sky tab → Tonight → Meteor Showers

See the next shower's Photographic Opportunity Score, a 12-month timeline, and per-night windows scored for your location. (Pro.)

The number you see is what you'll actually count.

Any meteor rate (briefing, Live View, Meteor Showers)

Published ZHR figures assume a perfect dark sky with the radiant straight overhead: conditions you will essentially never have. We derate that headline by how high the radiant actually climbs from your latitude and how much the moon washes the sky that night, so a ZHR of 100 may honestly read as 20/hr. Lower, and true.

Active and peak showers show up in the briefing on their own.

Today tab → Daily Report → Meteor Watch

On any night a shower is active, the briefing names it and its parent comet, gives tonight's honest hourly rate, the best window, how high the radiant gets, and which way to face. Peak nights get their own headline. Astro-style users see every active shower; a major peak shows for everyone. (Pro.)

Every solar and lunar eclipse through 2040: and whether you'll see it.

Sky tab → Tonight → Next Eclipse

The card names the next eclipse your spots or GPS location can actually see. Tap for the full schedule to 2040 and the interactive globe: solar eclipses draw the gold totality band and the blue partial zone, so you can see exactly where to travel. Heads-up notifications arrive a month, a week, and a day before every major eclipse (Settings gear → Daily Briefings → Eclipse heads-up). In Live View, the eclipse target shows where in YOUR sky the eclipsed Sun or Moon will stand at maximum: plan the foreground before the day. Times are computed on-device and checked against a verified catalog. Never look at a solar eclipse without certified eclipse glasses or a solar filter. (Pro.)

Every comet bright enough to matter, brightest first.

Sky tab → Comet Watch card (also on Today)

The card spotlights the brightest comet up now with tonight's window, best hour, and where to look; tap for the full list: brightening, near peak, and fading: with a visual magnitude scale (lower numbers are brighter). The top comets become aimable targets in Live View and the Night Sky Planner. Positions come from the JPL ephemeris for your exact location; brightness from the worldwide observer network, labeled with its as-of date whenever the feed is stale. (Pro.)

Know early when planets pair up close enough to share a frame.

Today briefing; Settings gear → Daily Briefings

When naked-eye planets: or the Moon and a planet: close within a few degrees AND the pair is genuinely shootable from your sky, the briefing headlines it: separation, the shooting window, direction, and height, with sub-degree planet pairings flagged as the years-apart events they are. Alerts arrive two days ahead (time to scout a foreground) plus an evening-of reminder timed to your sky: never a mid-day buzz. All positions are computed on your phone, corrected for the Moon's parallax at your exact location. The heads-up is free; the full briefing write-up is part of Pro.

Know when the Space Station streaks over your sky: and point at it live.

Sky tab → Tonight → ISS Tracker

The card headlines your next VISIBLE pass: the station sunlit against a dark sky, not just overhead: with when it appears, how high it climbs, which way it travels, and a suggested exposure. Inside: the live orbit, every pass for the next 5 days (honest about which ones you can't see), and SUN & MOON TRANSITS within 60 miles over 7 days: sub-second silhouette crossings, each with a disc diagram. Transit corridors are only a few miles wide, so tap a transit for the CHASE MAP: the visibility band shaded on the map, crossing times along the centerline, suggested parking by distance off the line, and one-tap directions. Solar transits require a certified solar filter. During a pass, open Live View and choose ISS as your target. Settings gear → Daily Briefings → ISS heads-up pings you 15 minutes before bright passes and the day before + 90 minutes before nearby transits. Orbits are computed on your phone: re-check transit times the morning of, since station boosts shift corridors by miles. (Pro.)

A jet silhouetted on the sun or moon, spotted minutes ahead.

Sky tab → Tonight → Aircraft Transits

While the Aircraft Transits sheet is open, the app watches live air traffic within 40 nautical miles of you and checks every plane against the sun and moon discs from your exact spot. Planes can't be predicted hours ahead: the disc is half a degree wide and jets wander more than that in a minute: so this is a live watch, not a schedule: candidates surface two to three minutes out (WATCH), sharpen with every fresh position, and LOCK with a countdown in the final minute, including how long the silhouette lasts and how big the plane will appear. Near-misses show their miss distance so you can frame wide. Keep the sheet open at the tripod; there are deliberately no push alerts, because physics only allows a live answer. Solar shots require a certified solar filter. Aircraft data © adsb.lol contributors (ODbL). (Pro.)

Find darker skies with less light pollution near you.

Sky tab → Plan a shot → DARKLIGHT

A light-pollution map from NASA's VIIRS satellite night lights, colored on the Bortle scale: black and deep colors are dark, bright glow is city light. Your saved spots are pinned with stars. Strong Milky Way skies start around Bortle 4 and below. Each spot's breakdown also carries its Bortle estimate. (Pro.)

The whole sky drawn on your camera preview: before the light arrives.

Sky tab → Plan a shot → LIVE VIEW

Point the phone at the sky and it draws what's there: the moon's path with rise and set markers, the Milky Way itself (NASA's survey of the galaxy's light, placed for your exact place and time and dimmed by the Moon and twilight as the night will dim it), the core, 21 constellation figures (the winter ones too: Perseus, Auriga, Taurus, Gemini, Orion, Canis Major), stars in their own colours, planets, the current bright comet, and any active meteor shower's radiant. Drag the time slider to see where everything will be later tonight, and NOW to come back. Your lens is drawn as a frame on the live picture: tap a focal length to see what it captures, and flip portrait or landscape: and the real terrain skyline around you is traced as a thin line. The readout shows where the phone points (AZ and ALT). Also opens from AR in the Map Planner (for the pin's sky) and LIVE in Sky Tonight. The camera image never leaves your phone. (Pro.)

Fix a Live View sky that sits a few degrees off.

Live View → ALIGN

Phone compasses drift ±5–15°: that's physics, not a bug. The chip reads COMPASS ROUGH until you calibrate: tap ALIGN, then drag the sky sideways until the drawn skyline sits on the real ridge (or the moon on its marker), and tap ALIGN again. The chip turns ALIGNED with how long ago; re-align after moving near metal, a car, or a tripod head, or when it says RE-ALIGN.

A steady, bright-enough preview for composing at night.

Live View → lock, EV and ∞ FOCUS controls

Tap anywhere on the picture to meter exposure and focus on that point (a box marks it). AE/AF LOCK holds exposure and focus so the view stays steady as the light fades: it reads LOCKED, or AE LOCKED if the lens can't hold focus. − and + change exposure a third of a stop at a time (EV). ∞ FOCUS sets the lens to infinity for stars and distant ridges. Controls a lens doesn't support are dimmed, with a short note saying so. These only change the preview, not your real camera. (Pro.)

See when the sun, moon, or core stands over your landmark.

Live View → pin button

Tap the pin and search your foreground: a lighthouse, peak, or bridge. Live View marks its bearing and top, and the row below says when the sun, moon, or core stands OVER it in the next 24 hours; tap the body name to cycle AUTO, SUN, MOON, CORE, and GO to jump the clock to that moment. The sightline check traces the terrain between you and the landmark: it says whether it's CLEAR or HIDDEN from where you stand (or unknown), and TRY lines suggest what would fix it: tap for the SIGHTLINE details. Rows marked SIGHTLINE UNKNOWN or ASSUMES HEIGHT are best guesses. Never look at the sun through a lens. (Pro.)

Pick one object and let the app walk your camera onto it.

Live View → CHOOSE TARGET

Tap CHOOSE TARGET for everything up tonight: planets, the galactic core, meteor radiants, bright stars, constellations, the comet, the ISS: each listed with its current altitude and compass direction. Pick one and it pulses on screen, the rest dim back, and an arrow points the way when it's out of frame. Anything below the horizon says so rather than aiming you at the ground. (Pro.)

Dial the star field up for identifying, down for composing.

Live View → the sky-detail button

Cycles FULL (everything), GUIDE (the bright, named objects), and MINIMAL (moon and landmark only) so the planetarium never buries the shot you came for. Your choice sticks between sessions. (Pro.)

Live NOAA space weather turned into a go/no-go for the northern lights.

Aurora tab

The top card gives the storm level (quiet, unsettled, G1–G5 storm). AURORA AT YOUR LOCATION is NOAA's OVATION model of activity over your GPS spot: modeled activity, not a promise you'll see it; darkness, clouds and a low horizon still matter. Six tiles, each tappable for its history and meaning: Bz is the door (negative, or south, lets solar-wind energy in: the most important number); Bt is how much magnetic field there is to work with; solar wind speed and density are the push; Kp is a slow, planet-wide 3-hour average; Hemi Power is the aurora's live output in gigawatts. (Pro.)

Which nights in the coming days and weeks could bring aurora.

Aurora tab → KP OUTLOOK

The outlook strip shows the next hours of Kp with G-storm levels marked. Tap it for the full forecast: Kp for the next 72 hours in NOAA's 3-hour bins, the daily maximum for 27 days, recent solar flares, active watches and alerts, and NOAA's forecaster note. Long-range days are estimates that firm up in the 3-day forecast. (Pro.)

The full charts behind the aurora numbers, timed to hit Earth.

Aurora tab → DEEP DIVE

Charts for the last day: Bz and Bt (with the next minutes still in transit marked), solar wind speed and density, hemispheric power, the GOES magnetometer (sharp swings mark a substorm), solar radio flux, and the OVATION aurora oval on a globe with your position. Solar-wind charts are plotted at Earth-arrival time: the satellite sits a million miles upstream, so you read what's hitting the atmosphere now. (Pro.)

Catch the sudden aurora burst that Kp misses.

Aurora tab → Substorm Mode

A substorm is the short, bright burst of aurora: minutes, not hours. The verdict walks the cycle QUIET → LOADING (energy going in: get ready) → ONSET WATCH → EXPANSION / LOOK UP (it's happening: shoot now) → RECOVERY, using the live solar wind and the GOES magnetometer, with chips that show the ingredients. Freshness labels say how old each feed is. LOADING at dusk is the cue to drive; LOOK UP means shoot now. (Pro.)

Watch the solar wind press on Earth's magnetic field, live.

Aurora tab → Solar Wind Around Earth Now

A 3D globe driven by the live NOAA readings: compression, deflection, and the polar funnels brightening as coupling strengthens, with three live readouts. It shows current conditions, not a canned animation, and pauses itself when scrolled away to save battery. (Pro.)

A red-light dashboard of live aurora numbers for the passenger seat.

Aurora tab → Chase Mode

Bz and Bt lead in huge night-vision red, with hemispheric power, Kp, wind, density and your GPS below: turn the phone sideways for a widescreen grid. The map button routes to a saved dark spot (nearest first) or any address on a dimmed map, keeping Bz, Hemi Power, Bt and wind on screen while you navigate. The sun/moon button toggles the red filter; the slider dims the screen. For the passenger: never operate it while driving. Also “Chase mode in Shutter Scout” with Siri. (Pro.)

How colorful the next sunset or sunrise will be, mapped across your region.

Emberlight tab (the flame)

A live heat map scores color potential across your region: brighter cells are where the light should land (the legend runs LOWER to HIGHER). Your spots carry score markers; tap one for its full breakdown and 5-day outlook. Press and hold anywhere on the map to score that exact point. The chips at the top flip between the next two events. (Pro.)

Check tonight's sunset and tomorrow's sunrise side by side.

Emberlight tab → the two chips above the map

Emberlight opens on the next event and puts the one after it on a second chip, each carrying its own score. Tap to flip the whole map, pins and all, so you can decide whether the early alarm is worth setting. (Pro.)

Why a spot's color score is high or low: in plain terms.

Emberlight tab → tap a spot

Color needs light to travel a long, clean path and then hit cloud from underneath, so the model reads the sky between you and the sun: not just overhead: plus cloud height, cloud motion, moisture, and haze or smoke. The sheet leads with the score, its band, the reason and advice, then cards you can open: SKY CANVAS (high, mid and low cloud to catch color), THE GAP LIGHT (whether the horizon is open or distant cloud blocks the light path), AIR CLARITY (visibility, humidity, wind), and WINDOWS & TIMING (golden hour, blue hour, twilight). Flip SUNRISE and SUNSET at the top. (Pro.)

Press and hold anywhere to score a spot you haven't saved.

Emberlight tab → press and hold the map

Press and hold any point for its Emberlight score for the next event, its coordinates, and a “less certain” note when a forecast input is missing. The map button opens that point in Maps for directions; ✕ dismisses it. The score is the same field the map is painted from, so the probe and the colors always agree. (Pro.)

Emberlight keeps working when its main weather source is down.

Emberlight tab → NOAA MODE chip

Emberlight normally scores the sky from Open-Meteo's high-resolution forecast. If that service stops answering, the map switches to NOAA's Global Forecast System (GFS) and an amber NOAA MODE chip appears: tap it for what that means and which GFS run is in use. The scoring is the same, but the model is different, so scores can differ a little. It switches back automatically. A quieter “Forecast from … ago” chip means the map is showing its most recent saved copy. (Pro.)

Every sunrise and sunset for five days, scored on one page.

Emberlight tab → tap any of your spots

Each saved spot's sheet shows every upcoming event at once, with the best one marked. The first two events are the ALERT WINDOW: the only ones push alerts ever fire for. Everything beyond is outlook only, because scores that far out drift as the weather models update: treat them as a trend, not a promise. (Pro.)

When autumn leaves turn, peak, and fade around your spots.

Today tab → Fall Color card (in season)

During fall, open the seasonal card for estimated ONSET, PEAK, and END dates at your spots and where you're standing, plus what to photograph and when the light works best. Dates come from latitude, elevation and coast exposure; a hard frost or windstorm can end a peak in a day, so treat the week as the target, not the day. The card hides itself the rest of the year. (Pro.)

Tonight's odds of glowing blue waves at the beach.

Today tab → Bio Blue card (West Coast beaches)

Appears when your tide beach is on the US West Coast. Tap for the score and its reasons: the glowing plankton only light up when the water is stirred, so the model finds the night's strongest tide movement in darkness and weighs water temperature, moon darkness, and season. Higher means better odds the waves glow. The same plankton can cause red tides: the card always points you to the state health authorities before you touch the water. (Pro.)

The odds of a rainbow right now, and which way to look.

Today tab → Arclight card

Scores rainbow chances for where you're standing from the sun's height, rain, clouds and visibility, and says which direction to face and how high the bow will arc: rainbows need a low sun at your back and rain in front. Tap the card for every saved spot. It updates often because showers move in minutes. Rainbow alerts can ping you (Settings gear → Rainbow Alerts). (Pro.)

The evening a full moon photographs best: often the night before.

Settings gear → Daily Briefings → Full moon heads-up

A full moon rising in full dark is a white blob over a black foreground. The app finds the evening where moonrise lands in blue hour instead: sky reading as night while the land still holds detail, so both fit in one frame. That's usually the night BEFORE exact fullness, and at 97%+ nobody can tell the difference. The heads-up arrives three nights ahead, names that night and its moonrise time, and flags supermoons. The dawn side is covered too, for west-facing subjects. The moon calendar on Today shows the month.

High and low tide times for every beach you care about.

Today tab → Tides card → tap for the full report

The card shows the day's curve, next highs and lows, and water temperature. Tap it for the FULL report: one section per saved coastal spot: plus wherever GPS says you're standing: each with its NOAA station and distance, today's curve, the today-and-tomorrow high/low schedule with KING (unusually high) and MINUS (unusually low, tidepool) flags, and the water temperature at that beach from the ocean model. Late high tide plus darkness means wet rocks: know your exit. (Pro.)

An animated weather map built for photographers.

Today tab → Sky Cover tile

Eight layers in two rows of chips: CLOUDS, CLARITY, FOG, SMOKE, STRIKES, WIND, RADAR and SATELLITE. Forecast layers animate up to 72 hours ahead: press play, or drag the scrubber to any hour. RADAR and SATELLITE loop recent observed images; STRIKES is live only. Pan and zoom freely; the legend explains each color, and the info button notes that forecast fields are smoothed model samples, not native-resolution imagery. (Pro.)

What each map layer tells you about tonight's sky.

Sky Cover → the layer chips

CLOUDS: total cloud, or pick LOW, MID or HIGH to see each deck (high thin cloud can make great sunsets; low cloud blocks stars). CLARITY: sky transparency from cloud, humidity and smoke: the astrophotographer's layer, white is cloudy and deep blue is excellent. FOG: where fog is likely. SMOKE: wildfire smoke from NOAA's HRRR-Smoke model. STRIKES: live lightning. WIND: speed with flowing particles: calm is better for long exposures and trackers. RADAR: observed rain and snow. SATELLITE: true-color satellite imagery of the real sky. (Pro.)

Live lightning strikes on the map, fading over the last hour.

Sky Cover → STRIKES

Shows real strikes color-aged over 60 minutes with a live count, covering 100 miles around you. From the same deck you can switch on Lightning Alerts. Photograph storms from safe cover: lightning within a few miles means pack up, not shoot. Not a safety warning system; always follow official guidance. (Pro.)

Wildfire smoke forecast, so haze doesn't wreck the shot.

Sky Cover → SMOKE

NOAA's HRRR-Smoke 3 km forecast: clean air stays transparent, plumes render in the color ramp. Scrub the timeline to see it drift. Light smoke can deepen sunset color; heavy smoke mutes stars and landscapes. (Pro.)

Separate forecasts for the base, your spot, and the summit.

Today tab → Mountain Weather card (mountain spots)

When one of your spots is a mountain or pass, the app reads the terrain around it and builds elevation bands: BASE, YOUR SPOT, and SUMMIT: each downscaled to its own altitude for the next 3 days: temperature, wind, precipitation type, the FREEZING LEVEL and a SNOW LEVEL estimate. Each band also has a TONIGHT line for your hours at the tripod: the overnight low, what it feels like in the wind, peak gusts, and cloud cover. Winds are free-air estimates; terrain funnels run higher. (Pro.)

Every notification the app sends, and where to switch it.

Settings gear → Daily Briefings and the alert sections

Free, in Daily Briefings: Dawn and Dusk briefings, Full moon heads-up, Eclipse heads-up, ISS heads-up, and Planetary conjunctions. Pro sections appear below once you have Pro: Aurora Alerts, Emberlight Alerts, Lightning Alerts, Meteor Shower Alerts, and Rainbow Alerts. Tide and weather warnings show on Today rather than as push alerts, and Aircraft Transits is a live watch with no alerts by design. Every alert leaves a receipt in Signals.

A nudge before sunrise and sunset, timed for your drive.

Settings gear → Daily Briefings

Turn on Dawn briefing and/or Dusk briefing, then choose how far ahead to be pinged: 30 min, 60 min, 90 min, 2 hr, or 4 hr: your drive and setup buffer. The line underneath shows exactly when the next ones will ring; times track the sun through the seasons for your lead spot.

Make sure alerts can actually reach your phone.

Settings gear → Daily Briefings → Test

The status row says whether notifications are ready, off, or not set up. Test sends one end-to-end; if notifications are off, the button becomes Settings and opens iOS Settings for you. If alerts are armed in the app but iOS notifications are off, Today shows a red “Alerts can't reach this device” card until it's fixed. Focus modes and Low Power Mode can delay or hide banners.

Every alert you've received, explained, in one place.

Today tab → Signals row (top)

When Shutter Scout sends an alert, a receipt lands here, marked NEW until you look. Tap the row to read recent alerts; tapping one jumps to the feature that raised it. Opening the app clears the icon badge. Hidden until your first alert.

Get pushed when the northern lights are worth going out for.

Settings gear → Aurora Alerts

Three triggers, each with its own threshold: LOCAL AURORA (your local aurora chance, overhead or on the poleward horizon), WING KP (the live estimated Kp), and SOLAR WIND (Bz, speed, and more: leave a slider at its minimum to ignore it). Checked every 15 minutes against NOAA's live models and delivered even with the app closed; only your rounded location is used. (Pro.)

A heads-up before a colorful sunrise or sunset at your spots.

Settings gear → Emberlight Alerts

Set the score to alert at (0–100). In the couple of hours before each sunset and sunrise the app scores your saved spots and pings you when one clears your bar, with time to drive: even with the app closed. Only the next two events ever alert, never days ahead. (Pro.)

A push when lightning strikes near you.

Settings gear → Lightning Alerts (or Sky Cover → STRIKES)

Choose a radius of 25, 50, or 100 miles and a comfort limit: no limit, or at most 3, 2, or 1 alert per hour. The watch checks a live strike network about every 5 minutes around your most recent location and alerts even with the app closed; open the app after a long drive so the watch moves with you. Planning notifications, not a safety system. (Pro.)

A reminder before a shower's best night for your sky.

Settings gear → Meteor Shower Alerts

Turn it on for a heads-up two nights before each good peak at your location: already checked against the moon. (Pro.)

A ping when a rainbow becomes likely where you are.

Settings gear → Rainbow Alerts

Set the rainbow chance to alert at. It only fires when the sun is low (under 42°) with rain around, so it's quiet most of the day; checked every 15 minutes against live weather using your rounded location. (Pro.)

An on-device photography companion that knows tonight's briefing.

Today tab → chat bubble in the header

Tap the chat icon to ask about tonight's plan, gear, technique, or how a feature works. Runs entirely on your phone, offline.

A dim red screen light that won't ruin your night vision.

Today tab → red moon button in the header

Floods the screen with pure red and dims the display itself. Drag the red slider for brightness (it opens dim on purpose); tap anywhere to hide the controls, tap again to bring them back. A big clock helps time sequences. Your normal brightness returns when you close it. Also from the Astro Red Light widget, Siri (“Red light mode in Shutter Scout”), or the Action button via Shortcuts. Free.

Tint the whole app red to protect your night vision.

Settings gear → Night Vision → Red light mode

Tints every screen, sheet and pop-up in astronomy red, so you can read conditions without losing the dark adaptation you spent thirty minutes building. The one thing it can't tint is the system keyboard. For a plain red light to see by, use Red Light instead. Free.

Live aurora numbers and one-tap tools on your Home and Lock Screen.

Home or Lock Screen → add a Shutter Scout widget

Touch and hold the Home Screen, tap Edit → Add Widget, and search Shutter Scout. Widgets: Bz · IMF, Bt · Total Field, Kp Index, and Hemispheric Power show live space weather; Astro Red Light and Chase Mode are one-tap launchers. Small, circular and rectangular sizes. Widgets refresh on the system's schedule: open the app for decision-grade numbers.

Ask for the aurora or sunset forecast, or open tools, by voice.

Siri, Spotlight, or the Shortcuts app

Say “Aurora check in Shutter Scout” for Kp and Bz from the latest data, “Emberlight in Shutter Scout” for how the next sunset or sunrise scores at your lead spot, “Red light mode in Shutter Scout” to open Red Light, or “Chase mode in Shutter Scout.” The same shortcuts appear in Spotlight and the Shortcuts app, where you can add them to the Home Screen or the Action button.

Show times as 17:25 or 5:25 PM, and temperatures in °C or °F.

Settings gear → Units

Turn on 24-hour time and/or Celsius; they apply across every screen and your generated reports. Distances stay in miles; Lens Tools and Hourly switch to metres and km/h when Celsius is on.

Pick the look of the app on your Home Screen.

Settings gear → App Icon

Four looks, one moon: Ember, Aurora, Twilight, and Arclight (the rainbow). Tap one to switch.

Have your daily report written by an on-device voice.

Settings gear → Briefing Voice

Turn on AI briefing voice to have the verdict and every report section written for you. Choose Standard (Apple Intelligence) or download a larger voice model; they run entirely on your phone with no account, stand down automatically if the phone runs hot, and resume interrupted downloads. The Active model line shows what's in use.

See where the numbers come from and whether each feed is live.

Settings gear → Data Sources

Four feeds with a live status each: Live Weather (Open-Meteo, with National Weather Service fallback), Tides (NOAA CO-OPS), Space Weather (NOAA SWPC), and Sky Almanac (computed on your device). OK is live, STALE hasn't updated recently, DOWN is offline. The UPDATED line at the bottom of Today shows the same health. Shutter Scout labels stale data instead of hiding it.

Tap ↻ a few hours before you shoot, and again before you leave: forecasts change, and so do the scores.

Today tab → ↻ at the top (or pull down on Today)

The ↻ button at the top of Today fetches everything fresh: the latest weather model run, warnings, tides and solar wind: and rebuilds your report and scores (Pro). Pulling down on Today does the same data refresh. Clouds, smoke and wind forecasts shift through the day, so refresh a few hours before you plan to shoot and once more before you head out. On their own, feeds also re-check whenever you return to the app and on a timer while it stays open: solar wind every few seconds, weather alerts every few minutes.

What still works when you lose signal.

Anywhere without a connection

Sun, moon, Milky Way, planets, Sky Tonight and the planners are computed on your phone and work anywhere. Live feeds: weather, tides, space weather, Emberlight: need a connection and show their last-known values, labeled stale, without one. For a specific shoot, save the plan for offline use first (Map Planner → Plans → SAVE OFFLINE) to carry its terrain and forecast.

Report a bug or share an idea from anywhere in the app.

Shake your phone on any screen

Shake the phone to open Leave Feedback, then tap Email Feedback: your app version, build and device come pre-filled so problems can be tracked down. Support and website links are also at the bottom of the settings gear.

What you get free, and what Shutter Scout Pro unlocks.

Any PRO badge, or Settings gear → Unlock Shutter Scout Pro

Free: tonight's verdict and Conditions Score, the moon calendar, Signals and all weather, tide and space-weather warnings, the Field Guide tab, Red Light, Night Vision, widgets and Siri, and the Daily Briefings heads-ups (dawn, dusk, full moon, eclipse, ISS, conjunctions). Pro: the rest of the Today briefing and Field Log, the whole Sky tab (planners, Viewfinder, Live View, events), the Emberlight map, the Aurora tab, Sky Cover, Scout Nearby, and the aurora, Emberlight, lightning, meteor and rainbow alerts. Locked items stay visible with a PRO badge: tap one to see the offer.

Plans, free trial, restoring, and cancelling.

Settings gear → Unlock Shutter Scout Pro → Restore Purchases

Three ways to go Pro: Monthly, Yearly (with a free trial when your account is eligible), or Lifetime (one purchase, yours for good). New phone or reinstall? Tap Restore Purchases on the Pro screen. A Lifetime purchase on the Mac app unlocks this app too through iCloud, and the other way around. Manage or cancel subscriptions in Apple's Settings → your name → Subscriptions; the Pro card in the settings gear shows your current plan. If a family organizer must approve (Ask to Buy), Pro unlocks the moment it's approved.

Buying Lifetime doesn't automatically stop a subscription.

Settings gear → Shutter Scout Pro

A one-time Lifetime purchase and an auto-renewing subscription are separate things to Apple, so a running subscription or free trial keeps billing after you buy Lifetime. The app detects the overlap and shows a “You're paying twice” card with a Cancel Subscription button: only you can cancel. Do that and your Lifetime access stays untouched.