ASTRO Tracker

Planning a night-sky outing often requires stitching together too many signals: darkness, moonlight, Milky Way visibility, planets, ISS opportunities, distance, and location-specific context.

The hard part is not finding more data. The hard part is deciding whether tonight is worth leaving the house and where to go. ASTRO Tracker exists to make that decision easier.

Built first for me and people who want a lightweight way to plan skywatching or astrophotography without overplanning every session.

• Which nearby location is worth considering.
• Whether moonlight or darkness makes the night promising.
• Whether Milky Way, planet, or ISS visibility changes the plan.
• Whether the app is using the right location.

ASTRO Tracker should be a field tool, not a dashboard full of astronomy data.

It should help someone decide where to go and what is worth looking for.

• Location trust has to be explicit. If the app is using a default location, say so.
• Rank locations by decision usefulness, not by data completeness.
• Treat filters as confidence controls.
• Keep the experience mobile-friendly and glanceable.
• Avoid implying precision when the app is using a fallback or default.

At a high level, ASTRO Tracker combines a location input or default, nearby site list, sky-condition calculations, filter and scoring logic, result cards, and clear location-source status messaging.

The live tool provides a useful planning surface for skywatching and astrophotography. The main trust gap is location clarity. If the page displays one location but results are based on another, or if a detected location conflicts with a default location, the product feels unreliable even when the calculations are working.

• Explicit location-source banner.
• Set your actual location copy when using a default.
• Saved locations.
• Better permission states for browser geolocation.
• Favorites for sites.
• Later: nightly checklist, calendar reminders, and session notes.

Have an idea or bug report? Request a feature.