Nightshift Stargazing

Waddensky Astronomy

Contains adsIn-app purchases

About this app

Nightshift helps you find perfect nights for stargazing, assists you in observing your favourite planets, meteor showers and deep-sky objects and keeps you up-to-date about the celestial events in tonight's sky. Nightshift is the ideal free night sky app for the experienced amateur astronomer as well as the casual stargazer!

Features at a glance
☆ Worldwide stargazing conditions and forecast
☆ Sky view and star chart
☆ Celestial event calendar and astronomy highlights
☆ Over 15,000 deep-sky objects
☆ Advanced object visibility prediction for your telescopes

Clear skies and darkness: stargazing weather forecast
See darkness and cloud cover forecast for any location in the world and find tonight's best observing opportunities. A twilight diagram shows you darkness, weather and observing conditions for any night at a glance. Receive notifications when conditions are good for your favorite observing locations.

Sky view and star chart
Browse around the night sky using the new sky view feature and watch planets, deep-sky objects and celestial events right at the best time to observe them. Zoom in to discover faint objects and activate the telrad circles to create finder charts to quickly locate your favourite targets at the telescope.

Never miss out on the highlights of tonight's sky
Astronomy events, visible planets, active meteor showers, noctilucent clouds, moon phases, oppositions, elongations, lunar eclipses and rise and set times right from the app's dashboard.

Save your favourite stargazing locations
Build a database of your favourite observing locations to get location-specific advice about darkness, cloud cover and visibility of celestial objects.

Moon phases and lunar eclipses
Find out the current phase of the Moon and the exact time and date of the next full moon, new moon and first and last quarter. Nightshift helps you plan the best moments for lunar observation or prevent moonlight from disturbing your deep-sky observing session. Nightshift contains a calendar with all partial and total lunar eclipses from 1801 to 2200 and gives location specific advice on the visibility of a blood moon from your favourite stargazing spot.

Planets of the solar system
Nightshift shows all the visible planets for tonight and the constellations they are in to quickly locate them in the night sky. The event calendar tells you exactly when the next opposition of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune takes place so you can easily plan your planetary observing sessions. For Venus and Mercury, the app displays the moment of the greatest elongation to determine the best morning and evening visibility of the inner planets. Of course, a twilight diagram is available for all planets to find the best opportunities to observe them on any night and the telescopes needed for optimal observation.

Over 15,000 deep-sky objects
Nightshift comes packed with a large database of deep-sky objects, including the complete Messier, Caldwell, NGC and IC catalogues. A darkness and clear sky diagram indicates when the conditions are favourable to observe your favourite galaxies, globular clusters, nebulae and other wonders of the deep space.

Comprehensive info from renowned catalogues
In-depth information on all celestial objects, including classification, brightness, angular size, distance and cross references with other astronomy catalogues.

Visibility prediction for telecopes, binoculars and naked eye
State-of-the-art algorithms predict if celestial objects are within reach of your equipment. The visibility calculator shows you if your favourite planet, galaxy or other heavenly body is visible with your own telescopes or binoculars.

Icon: NPS/Quinn (CC-BY 2.0)
Screenshots background: Mathias Krumbholz (CC-SA 3.0)

Discover the world of astronomy
Start stargazing tonight with Nightshift and keep track of the fascinating events of the night sky!

Ratings and reviews

I use a variety of astronomy apps. I use Nightshift mainly for quick access to transit times of notable objects on a given night, and other great info on the daily highlights tab. I like the default low-intensity monochromatic color scheme that always assumes I'm using it in the dark. I'm an app developer myself, and it's evident they put a lot of thought and engineering into the UI/UX. Overall great for knowing the notable events in the sky on any given night.

There are many excellent aspects to this app, and I feel similar to many reviewers about its scope. However, even having put in information on my telescopes, I get a huge list of potential targets for viewing, many of which are noted as "invisible", even in my 12" SCT. Then, stepping back, I am sent to the main page and not simply to the where I was in the visible objects list! Now, I must start all over again, at the beginning of the list sorted by transit time! This, to me, is poor design!

I'm giving this a mixed review. It is a good asset for those doing fairly precise observations. But for those without equipment and limited experience, identifying objects just is not possible without a sky map. I'm sure the paid version may be better, but without a sky map, there are no reference points for the casual observer. The cloud cover and weather monitoring are very good resources.

What's new

Bug fixes