Tonight's Sky — Plan Your Session

📍

Location

▼

Sky Brightness (SQM) ? Sky Quality Meter value — higher is darker. 22+ is pristine dark sky; 20–21 is rural; 18–19 is suburban. Estimated automatically from your location using light pollution data. If you have a real SQM meter, toggle to enter your actual reading for more accurate results.

estimated from location

I have a meter reading Enable this if you have an actual Sky Quality Meter reading for tonight. Your measured value will be used instead of the light-pollution estimate.

Latitude ? Your north-south position. Click the map or drag the marker to set automatically.

Longitude ? Your east-west position. Click the map or drag the marker to set automatically.

Timezone ? Used to convert your local start time to the correct UTC time for calculations. Set automatically when you click the map.

📅

Date & Time

▼

Observation Date ? The night you plan to observe. Objects are calculated for this date at your location.

Start Time ? The hour you plan to begin observing. Only objects visible during your session window will be shown.

20:00

Duration ? How long your session will last. Objects that set before your session ends will still be included if they are up at the start.

3 hrs

Horizon ? Objects below this altitude above the horizon will be excluded. Increase this if trees or buildings block your low sky.

25°

🔭

Equipment

▼

👁️ Naked Eye No equipment 🔍 Binoculars Handheld viewing 🔭 Telescope Deep sky

Aperture ? The diameter of your telescope's primary mirror or lens. Larger apertures collect more light and reveal fainter objects.

Binocular Size ? Larger binoculars gather more light. 7×50 and 10×50 are the most common for astronomy.

🌟

What to Observe

▼

Solar System

🪐 Planets ☄️ Comets 🪨 Asteroids

Deep Sky Objects

🌌 Galaxies Including groups & interacting pairs ✓ 💫 Nebulae Emission, reflection & dark ✓ 🔵 Planetary Nebulae Shells of dying stars ✓ ⚪ Globular Clusters Ancient balls of stars ✓ ✨ Open Clusters Young star groups ✓ ⭐ Double Stars Colorful pairs & multiples ✓ 🔴 Carbon Stars Deep red variable stars ✓

Search Depth ? Controls how far into the sky the search reaches. Showpiece — Designed with public events in mind. Casual — Objects that should not require averted vision. Deep — For those transparent nights when you want to go deep.

🌟 Showpiece

Only the very best objects — the ones that make first-timers gasp. Perfect for public nights or a quick session.

🔭 Casual

Good targets for a planned session. Rewarding without pushing limits. The default for most nights.

🌌 Deep

Everything your scope and sky can reach. For experienced observers who want the full list.

? By default the search depth setting uses every DSO catalog. Use these overrides only when you want to restrict results to a specific catalog you are working through, or hide one you have already completed. Note: catalog filters only apply to non-stellar deep-sky objects. Stars and solar system objects are not affected by these settings.

Click a catalog once to only include it. Click again to exclude it. Click a third time to clear.
Applies to deep-sky objects only. Double stars and carbon stars are unaffected.

CICMNGC