# Shutter Scout — Shoot tonight? Get the answer.

> Night sky photography field intelligence system for optimal celestial event planning. (iPhone/iPad app by Steven smith.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/shutter-scout/id6779348739 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [Steven smith](https://appshunter.io/developer/6779348741)
- Category: Photo & Video, Lifestyle
- Price: Free with in-app purchases
- Rating: 5.00/5 from 2 App Store ratings · 1 written reviews indexed
- Age rating: 4+
- Requires: iOS 18.0 · 38 MB
- Languages: American English
- Released: 2026-07-16
- Data updated: 2026-09-06
- Monetization: free with in-app purchases
- User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/shutter-scout/id6779348739/reviews.md

## What is Shutter Scout?

Stop driving out to shoot fog.

You know the feeling. You pack the bag, drive ninety minutes to the coast, and the marine layer is sitting on the water. Or you skip a night that looked mediocre on paper, and the internet fills up with the aurora you missed.

Shutter Scout ends the guessing. It watches the spots you actually shoot, reads the atmosphere, the moon, the solar wind and the tides, and gives you one straight answer:

GO. MARGINAL. STAY HOME.

That's the whole point. Not another wall of numbers to interpret at 9 PM. A decision, with all the reasoning underneath it if you want to check the work.

WHEN IT SAYS GO, IT TELLS YOU HOW

Every verdict comes with the shot: the exact window, where to stand, which direction to face, and the settings to start from. Core rising to 25 degrees in the south, clean until 12:22 AM, 20mm at f/2.8, 15 seconds before the stars trail.

A COMPLETE AURORA SUITE, NOT A KP NUMBER

Most aurora apps show you Kp and stop. Shutter Scout runs live solar wind (Bz, Bt, speed, density), NOAA's OVATION model for your exact coordinates, substorm nowcasting from GOES magnetometers, a 27-day outlook, and a 3D magnetosphere you can orbit with your finger. Push alerts fire when your threshold is crossed, including official NOAA storm warnings, often before the sky lights up. It is robust enough to be its own app. It's included.

EMBERLIGHT: KNOW THE COLOR BEFORE IT HAPPENS

Sunrise and sunset scored 0 to 100, hours ahead, from cloud structure at three altitudes, humidity, and the clarity of the air. Plus a 700-mile color map so you can see where the good light is landing and drive toward it.

LIVE VIEW: POINT YOUR PHONE AT THE SKY

Hold up your camera and see the Milky Way's arc, the moon's path with rise and set markers, constellations, planets, comets, meteor radiants, the ISS, and where the next eclipse will stand, drawn over the live view at your location. Scrub time forward to plan the composition before dark.

THE REST OF THE KIT

Night Sky Planner with verdicts and altitude charts for the moon, the core, and 25+ deep-sky targets
Shot Alignment Finder for when the moon lines up behind your landmark
Eclipse Awareness: every solar and lunar eclipse through 2040, with the path of totality on a globe
ISS Tracker with visible passes, plus Sun and Moon transit chasing and a map of the crossing corridor
Planetary conjunctions flagged two days ahead, timed to your sky
Comet Watch, brightest first
Meteor showers with honest hourly rates, derated for moonlight
Bio Blue bioluminescence potential on the coast
Tides with king and minus flags, per beach, with water temperature
Sky Cover, radar, smoke and satellite imagery
Mountain weather by elevation band: base, your spot, and summit
Darklight, the darkest sky near you
Lightning tracker with proximity alerts (a planning tool, not a safety system; always follow official guidance)
Red Light Mode to protect your night vision
Ask Scout, an on-device assistant that knows tonight's conditions

BUILT BY A NIGHTSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHER

Every photograph in these screenshots was taken by the developer, on the nights this app is designed to find. It exists because he got tired of driving out to shoot fog.

Free to use. Pro unlocks the full planning suite.

Forecasts are forecasts, and the sky is under no obligation to agree. But you miss every shot you don't take.

## Key features

- Aurora and solar wind forecasting
- Live lightning tracking and notifications
- Night sky planning with AR
- Animated weather maps for astrophotography
- Tidal information and spot finder
- Red light mode for low-light conditions

## Pricing and in-app purchases

Base price: Free.

**Subscriptions**

| Subscription | Price | Period |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Pro Yearly | $29.99 | per year |
| Pro Monthly | $4.99 | per month |

**One-time purchases**

| Purchase | Price | Type |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Pro Lifetime | $59.99 | one-time |


## Recent user reviews (1 of 1)

All indexed reviews: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/shutter-scout/id6779348739/reviews.md

### 5/5 — Amazing

*2026-07-28*

Whenever I plan a trip, I first want to know the potential sunset/sunrise conditions. Shutter Scout nailed the prediction every night I went out last week, and the sunsets were beautiful. I wouldn’t have captured my photos without this app. It’s easy to use, and I love all the different features!

**Developer response:** Thank you — this is exactly what Shutter Scout was built for. The prediction engine you're describing just got smarter in the latest update (it now understands wildfire smoke and mountain conditions too), with more on the way. Clear skies, and keep shooting.

## Frequently asked questions about Shutter Scout

### What is Shutter Scout?

Shutter Scout is a field intelligence system designed for night-sky photographers. It provides forecasts and real-time data to help users plan their shoots for celestial events, aurora, and storms.

### Does Shutter Scout have ads?

No, Shutter Scout is ad-free. The developers state that the app is transparent by design and does not contain advertisements or third-party ad tracking.

### What features are free in Shutter Scout?

The free version of Shutter Scout includes tonight's headline verdict, active weather and space-weather warnings, the Signals inbox, Red Light mode, and the Field Manual.

### What is included in Shutter Scout Pro?

Shutter Scout Pro unlocks the full Today briefing, Sky Tonight, Night Sky Planner with Live View AR, Darklight, Emberlight, Aurora Command with Chase & Substorm modes, Sky Cover with the Lightning Tracker, Scout Nearby, and all premium alerts.

### How much does Shutter Scout Pro cost?

Shutter Scout Pro is available as an auto-renewing monthly subscription for $4.99 or a yearly subscription for $29.99. A lifetime purchase option is also available.

### Does Shutter Scout Pro offer a free trial?

Yes, the yearly plan for Shutter Scout Pro includes a 7-day free trial. Subscriptions can be managed and canceled through your App Store account settings.

### What kind of weather data does Shutter Scout provide for photographers?

Shutter Scout offers an animated weather map specifically built for astrophotographers. This includes data on clouds, transparency (CLARITY score), fog, radar, lightning strikes, wind, and smoke.

### Is Shutter Scout available on multiple devices?

Based on the provided data, Shutter Scout is currently supported on iPhone devices.

## Version history (last 5 releases)

### 1.22 — 2026-09-03

Plan a shot from the top of the Sky page.

The six planning tools — Map Planner, Viewfinder, Find the Spot, Night Sky, Live View and Darklight — now sit in a deck at the top of the Sky page, above tonight's Milky Way window. Tap Viewfinder and you land on your last landmark plan; tap Find the Spot and the solver opens ready to tell you where to stand. Tonight's events — ISS passes, transits, meteors, eclipses, comets — follow underneath, in their own section.

Sky Cover radar and satellite, rebuilt.

Both loops now load every frame before they play, with an honest count while they do, and then run smoothly off memory instead of stuttering through half-painted frames. Satellite zooms in as cloud imagery rather than blocks, and the loop no longer blends last night into this morning.

Fall color.

A new seasonal card on the Today tab, only during the approach to autumn and the season itself. It reads the places you follow and where you are standing, estimates when each will turn, peak and fade, ranks them for today, and tells you what to look for there and what light to shoot it in. It is an estimate from geography, not a forecast — it says so, and it treats the week as the target rather than the day.

### 1.21 — 2026-08-30

The Viewfinder — see the shot before you drive.

Drop a second pin on the thing you actually want in the frame: a lighthouse, a butte, a bridge tower, a mountain. Shutter Scout measures it — how far away, which bearing, and how tall it stands in degrees — then draws it at its true angular size with the moon, sun or Milky Way core placed exactly where they will be, inside a rectangle that is your sensor at your focal length. Scrub the minute and watch the moon climb its track across your subject.

Find the Spot answers the harder question. Ask for the moon behind Mount Hood at 600 mm and it hands back a coordinate and a minute, because once you fix the lens and the framing, how far back you have to stand stops being a guess. Tap a result and the map pin walks there and the clock sets itself.

Alignment Window scans the next 60 nights for every moment the moon, sun or core crosses your landmark from where you are standing — dead behind it, grazing the edge, or clearing the top — and reports the window to the second.

Also new: a starter roster of landmarks with their published heights, a 24-hour sun, moon and core arc you can drag to scrub the whole night, and saved plans that now remember your subject as well as your spot.

Every number here is geometry from the offline ephemeris — no network, no forecast. It tells you where the light will be. Whether the sky cooperates is still up to the sky.

### 1.20 — 2026-08-29

The Map Planner — drop a camera pin anywhere on Earth and see exactly where the light will land.

Bearing rays radiate from your pin for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, moonset and the Milky Way core, each labelled with its time. Solid rays show where the sun, moon and core actually are at whatever minute you scrub to — any minute, any date, a year ahead. Search a place by name, and the clock follows the pin, so a spot in another timezone reads in its own local time.

Found a composition? Save This Plan stores the pin, the date and the exact minute, and Saved Plans puts you right back there in one tap. An AR button on the map opens Live View for that spot, so you can plan on the map and then point the phone at the sky.

The moon calendar now marks dark core nights too — a dot on the days with genuine moon-free Milky Way time.

### 1.19 — 2026-08-28

Shutter Scout now tells you about the big nights BEFORE they arrive. Eclipses, named full moons, meteor-shower peaks and close planet pairings all feed one "Coming Up" list in your daily report and Field Guide, each with enough lead time to actually plan around — and when something rare falls tonight or tomorrow, it leads the report instead of hiding below the weather.

Eclipses get the full local treatment: real contact times for your spot, how high the Moon or Sun sits at greatest, whether the Moon rises already inside Earth's shadow, and the exposure guidance to shoot it. Partial lunar eclipses now send an alert — they never did before — and every eclipse reminder gains a morning-of nudge.

Also: tapping any date in the moon calendar now moves the whole card with it — phase, illumination, moonrise, moonset and that night's Milky Way core window. Moonrise and moonset are paired to the same lunar pass, which fixes repeated times and correctly names the day each month when the Moon doesn't rise at all. Comet Watch reads live data again and now recommends the comet that is genuinely best placed tonight rather than whichever carries the smallest magnitude number.

### 1.18 — 2026-08-26

Ready for the winter sky: when Milky Way core season winds down, the app now recommends the winter roster — Winter Milky Way arch, Orion, Andromeda, Pleiades, Double Cluster, California Nebula, and the Rosette — each with real imaging windows and field advice. On fall nights when the core and the winter sky share one night, it recommends both: core early, deep sky late.

Also: the Emberlight extended forecast fits on one page and labels the alert window honestly (alerts only ever fire for the next two events), Mountain Weather gains an overnight line per elevation band plus a snow-level estimate, and the Today and Sky pages are reordered for faster reads.

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## More apps by Steven smith

- [TonePoet](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/tonepoet/id6781715008)
- [ReSoul: Audio Mastering](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/resoul-audio-mastering/id6790546648)
- [EXIF Magic](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/exif-magic/id6794719771)
- [AstroGlow: Milky Way Camera](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/astroglow-milky-way-camera/id6798373457)
- [Night Atlas: Constellation ID](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/night-atlas-constellation-id/id6802834713)

All apps by Steven smith: https://appshunter.io/developer/6779348741

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*Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-09-06.*