Stargazing in Forecast Bar, in short
- Best window
- Forecast Bar's Stargazing Conditions finds the best dark window in the next 36 hours for your location and rates it Excellent, Good, Fair or Poor.
- What goes into it
- The Forecast Bar stargazing rating combines how dark the sky gets and where the Moon sits with forecast clouds, precipitation, visibility, humidity, haze and smoke.
- Chart
- A 0 to 100 chart runs across the night, and dragging along it moves the rating and the time to that hour.
- Artificial light
- Forecast Bar shows light pollution separately, as an estimate of your sky's brightness on a clear, moonless night, when that data is available. It is not part of the rating.
- Sky events
- Upcoming Sky Events in Forecast Bar lists eclipses, meteor showers, conjunctions and other events, with each one's best viewing time worked out for your selected location.
- Alerts
- Forecast Bar's Astronomy Alerts cover meteor showers, eclipses, supermoons and more, and need Gold on iPhone and iPad or Pro on the Mac.
- Plan
- Stargazing Conditions is included with Silver and Gold on iPhone and iPad, and with Plus and Pro on the Mac.
- Platforms
- Stargazing Conditions works on iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV. The Apple TV app is part of Gold.
One rating, and the hours it covers.
Open Stargazing Conditions and the answer comes first: how good the best window is, and when it starts and ends. A short line underneath gives you the two things most likely to spoil it, how much of the Moon is lit and how cloudy it will be.
- Rated Excellent, Good, Fair or Poor
- The best window, in the location's own time zone
- Moon and cloud cover at a glance
- Add it as a tile on your main screen
Compare 10 p.m. with 2 a.m.
The best window may not suit you. It might be 3 a.m. on a work night. Drag along the chart and the rating and the time follow your finger, so you can see what the sky looks like at an hour you'd actually be awake.
- Scrub through the night hour by hour
- Tap Details for cloud layers, wind, haze and smoke
- See how high the Moon sits and how much it interferes
- See how dark the sky gets tonight
Every sky event, timed for where you are.
Upcoming Sky Events sits at the bottom of the stargazing forecast. It lists eclipses, meteor showers, conjunctions and other events, with each one's best viewing time worked out for your selected location, so you can plan a night out weeks ahead.
- Filter to highlights, eclipses, meteors, the Moon or planets
- Highlights are personalized with the latest forecast
- Meteor showers list their peak hourly rate
- Each event links to a full guide on forecastbar.com
An alert that checks the sky first.
Astronomy Alerts tell you about a meteor shower before it peaks, with the local viewing outlook in the notification. Turn on the option to skip alerts when viewing looks poor, and a clouded-out night stays quiet. If there's no local forecast yet, the alert still arrives.
- Turn them on and eclipses, major meteor showers and supermoons are included
- Add planetary highlights, conjunctions, full moons and dark-sky nights
- Meteor shower alerts arrive a day ahead and two hours ahead by default
- Needs Gold on iPhone and iPad, or Pro on the Mac
An honest note: the rating is about tonight's sky, not your streetlights.
Excellent means the weather, the darkness and the Moon are all on your side. It doesn't account for city lights, so an Excellent night downtown still shows far fewer stars than the same night out of town. Details shows an estimate of your artificial light as a separate reading, when that data is available.
Stargazing Conditions also looks only about a day and a half ahead. For a night next month, use Upcoming Sky Events and check back closer to the date. Far enough north in summer the sky never gets properly dark, and Forecast Bar says so: "No dark window in the next 36 hours."
Questions about stargazing forecasts
Does Forecast Bar have a stargazing forecast?
What does the stargazing rating take into account?
Does the rating include light pollution?
Can Forecast Bar alert me to meteor showers?
Does it work outside the United States?
How much does Forecast Bar cost?
Find tonight's best hour.
Try Stargazing Conditions free for 7 days with a new iPhone or iPad subscription.
Free to download; live weather requires a subscription. On iPhone and iPad, every subscription includes a 7-day free trial for new subscribers; Mac plans do not. Mac and iOS plans are separate; Apple TV is included with Forecast Bar Gold on iOS.
More from Forecast Bar
Eclipse, supermoon & solstice alerts
Lunar and solar eclipses visible from your location, supermoons, solstices and equinoxes — with warning.
Moon phase & moonrise
Today's phase, how much is lit, moonrise and moonset, the next four phases, and sky event alerts.
Astronomy calendar & night sky
Discover eclipses, meteor showers, Moon phases and planetary events, with viewing guides and a local night-sky outlook.