UI and functionality
Enjoying the simple user interface within the application and continue to keep finding new functionality. My experience this far too is that location services are highly accurate.
Works great
I have used multiple apps to find the Milky Way, or other celestial stuff, to find where a dark sky is as well as the cloud cover or haze in an area. What makes this app fantastic is that all those things are packed into one app. On top of it, there is an AR portion that allows you to setup your shot. I have found this app to work great and the improvements Jack has made are welcome and great.
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Super Useful App
This app is an amazing for photographers heading out to capture the night sky. It has a really fresh UI and has many tools for both beginners and professional photographers.
New favorite Astro app!
This app is a game changer! Easy to use with all the information an Astrophotographer needs to get the Milky Way core in frame. Having an Astro app that’s been researched, developed, designed, and used by a professional and award winning astrophotographer means that it is a highly practical and beautifully designed app. It’s just an app with features developers *think* we want, this app has tools you’ll actually need and use. It’s already helped me plan future shoots!
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Game changer for Milky Way Photographers
This should be the first app you pick up to plan your shoot and the last app you check before shooting. It’s that good.
This app is genuinely a game changer for Milky Way photographers. I’ve been doing Astrophotography for years and this app changed my preproduction workflow after a single use. The app is basically an all in one planner for shooting night sky photography. You can type in a location and then check the weather, the sky conditions for things like light pollution from nearby cities or from the moon, where and when the Milky Way core will be visible and how it will be moving across the sky.
I’m a pretty serious planner and what’s so exciting to me about Milky Way Tonight is that it offers me the information that I’ve been going to 5 or 6 different resources to gather independently. Instead of photopills AND stellarium AND Capture the Atlas Milky Way calendars AND google maps AND weather apps AND light pollution map, etc. I have all of that information not only in one place, but it’s easy and intuitive to use. I can type in my exact shooting date and location plans and have all of that instantly accessible to compare for multiple nights and nearby locations. SO convenient!
One of the things I was most impressed by is how acute you can hone in to locations for weather data. In August, I was shooting in Mammoth Lakes in the Eastern Sierras, and I was able to get different weather conditions for the town of Mammoth Lakes and the bottom of the mountain just a few minutes away. That may not sound like a big deal, but the change in elevation affects the clouds, which is one of our biggest concerns. Being able to check the different conditions in spaces close enough together to be counted as “one location” in my weather app helped me decide where to shoot based on which location would have better cloud conditions. That kind of thing can make a break an entire night of shooting. I’ve been in situations where I was set up to shoot, then the clouds started coming in, but the other nearby-enough locations all fell under one location umbrella in my weather apps that I couldn’t tell if the clouds were different there or if it was likely to be the same. Then you’re just left to guesswork if you should pack up and move or stick it out. I wish I had this app in situations like that to help me plan across those very specific locations and also check for nearby backups if conditions change (as they tend to do) very quickly in places like the mountains.
The creator of this app is Jack Fusco who is both an amazing artist and photographer but also a thoughtful and generous educator. All of that comes through in this app. Even if I didn’t know his photography work itself, it would be obvious that this app was made by someone that actually goes out and does this work. You can tell the app wasn’t just put together with some grab bag features without cohesion, but is thoughtful and efficient about supporting you in finding what you need but also remaining easy to navigate. You can tell all of this because of how intuitive it is to use. Whenever I wanted a piece of information or had a question or was looking at the response data from putting in my location and what it showed me made me think “huh, I wonder about this other thing next…” while looking at the data, that thing I was wondering about was the next thing that was presented to me. That kind of thing only happens when it’s been built by someone with experience. It’s just clear that this was built from a place of someone who has gone through this process and been like “I wish I had this, I wish I had that, etc. to help me plan,” and then they went and built what they need with those features. That’s what Jack has done with this app and it really shows.
There are other features that I haven’t even explored yet, like exposure guides and also more educational features like tips from Jack. I’m excited to dive into these further during the offseason when the Milky Way core isn’t visible and I’ll have a few weekends at home. In the meantime, this has become my number 1 go to app for my Milky Way photography. It’s the kind of thing that any photographer in their astrophotography journey can use. I have had both thoughts of “I wish I had this when I was just starting out and learning,” and also “now that I know what I’m doing, this is going to help me be more proficient and help me utilize my existing knowledge better and plan better and get more out of my shoots.” Really truly cannot recommend this app enough to anyone that’s interested in actually going out into the night and shooting photography of the night sky. Thanks Jack for making this awesome resource!
This app is genuinely a game changer for Milky Way photographers. I’ve been doing Astrophotography for years and this app changed my preproduction workflow after a single use. The app is basically an all in one planner for shooting night sky photography. You can type in a location and then check the weather, the sky conditions for things like light pollution from nearby cities or from the moon, where and when the Milky Way core will be visible and how it will be moving across the sky.
I’m a pretty serious planner and what’s so exciting to me about Milky Way Tonight is that it offers me the information that I’ve been going to 5 or 6 different resources to gather independently. Instead of photopills AND stellarium AND Capture the Atlas Milky Way calendars AND google maps AND weather apps AND light pollution map, etc. I have all of that information not only in one place, but it’s easy and intuitive to use. I can type in my exact shooting date and location plans and have all of that instantly accessible to compare for multiple nights and nearby locations. SO convenient!
One of the things I was most impressed by is how acute you can hone in to locations for weather data. In August, I was shooting in Mammoth Lakes in the Eastern Sierras, and I was able to get different weather conditions for the town of Mammoth Lakes and the bottom of the mountain just a few minutes away. That may not sound like a big deal, but the change in elevation affects the clouds, which is one of our biggest concerns. Being able to check the different conditions in spaces close enough together to be counted as “one location” in my weather app helped me decide where to shoot based on which location would have better cloud conditions. That kind of thing can make a break an entire night of shooting. I’ve been in situations where I was set up to shoot, then the clouds started coming in, but the other nearby-enough locations all fell under one location umbrella in my weather apps that I couldn’t tell if the clouds were different there or if it was likely to be the same. Then you’re just left to guesswork if you should pack up and move or stick it out. I wish I had this app in situations like that to help me plan across those very specific locations and also check for nearby backups if conditions change (as they tend to do) very quickly in places like the mountains.
The creator of this app is Jack Fusco who is both an amazing artist and photographer but also a thoughtful and generous educator. All of that comes through in this app. Even if I didn’t know his photography work itself, it would be obvious that this app was made by someone that actually goes out and does this work. You can tell the app wasn’t just put together with some grab bag features without cohesion, but is thoughtful and efficient about supporting you in finding what you need but also remaining easy to navigate. You can tell all of this because of how intuitive it is to use. Whenever I wanted a piece of information or had a question or was looking at the response data from putting in my location and what it showed me made me think “huh, I wonder about this other thing next…” while looking at the data, that thing I was wondering about was the next thing that was presented to me. That kind of thing only happens when it’s been built by someone with experience. It’s just clear that this was built from a place of someone who has gone through this process and been like “I wish I had this, I wish I had that, etc. to help me plan,” and then they went and built what they need with those features. That’s what Jack has done with this app and it really shows.
There are other features that I haven’t even explored yet, like exposure guides and also more educational features like tips from Jack. I’m excited to dive into these further during the offseason when the Milky Way core isn’t visible and I’ll have a few weekends at home. In the meantime, this has become my number 1 go to app for my Milky Way photography. It’s the kind of thing that any photographer in their astrophotography journey can use. I have had both thoughts of “I wish I had this when I was just starting out and learning,” and also “now that I know what I’m doing, this is going to help me be more proficient and help me utilize my existing knowledge better and plan better and get more out of my shoots.” Really truly cannot recommend this app enough to anyone that’s interested in actually going out into the night and shooting photography of the night sky. Thanks Jack for making this awesome resource!
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