Astronomy Alerts make sure you never miss a sky event — an eclipse, a supermoon, the change of seasons, or a night the aurora might be visible from your location. They require a Gold subscription (see Alerts & Notifications Overview for the sign-in and permission requirements).
Turning them on
Go to Settings → Notifications and switch on Astronomy Alerts (off by default). Tap the section's slider icon to open the detail screen, where a master toggle controls the whole category and each event type has its own toggle.
The five alert types
All five types are on when you enable the master toggle; switch off any you don't want:
| Alert type | What you're notified about |
|---|---|
| Lunar Eclipses | Upcoming lunar eclipses visible from your location |
| Solar Eclipses | Upcoming solar eclipses |
| Supermoons | Full moons at their closest, biggest approach |
| Solstices & Equinoxes | The astronomical start of each season |
| Aurora Forecast | Nights when aurora activity may be visible from your location |
Browsing the sky events catalog
The Astronomy Alerts screen shows the next highlights for your location, personalized with the latest forecast, and a See All Events button opens Upcoming Sky Events — the full catalog of eclipses, meteor showers, conjunctions and other events, each with its best viewing time for your selected location. Filter it to Highlights, everything, eclipses, meteors, the Moon, or planets. The same catalog is always one tap away at the bottom of the Stargazing Conditions forecast, so you don't need an alert to browse it.
When alerts arrive
- Celestial events (eclipses, supermoons, solstices & equinoxes) arrive 18 hours before the event by default, giving you time to plan. You can change this per event type to 24 hours, 18 hours, 12 hours, 6 hours, 3 hours, or 1 hour before, or at the event time.
- Aurora Forecast alerts arrive 60 minutes after sunset by default — once it's dark enough to look up.
To adjust the timing (or an aurora visibility threshold), open the matching alert under Settings → Notifications → Custom Notifications — each astronomy alert also appears there as an editable notification. See Custom & Threshold Alerts.
Tip: Gold subscribers can also watch the aurora on the map — choose the Aurora Forecast radar layer on the radar screen. And for colorful skies of the everyday kind, see Sunrise & Sunset Quality.
