Clear Outside

First Light Optics

About this app

Reliable weather forecasts for astronomers with an emphasis on cloud cover.
Key Features

Weather Forecasts
• Seven day hourly forecasts, updated hourly
• Low, medium, high and total cloud cover
• Regular weather data (wind, rain, frost, temperature, dew point, etc)
• Covers daytime too - ideal for solar observers and imagers

Astronomical Information
• Moon rise/set times and phase
• Sun rise/set and transit times
• Civil/nautical/astronomical darkness periods
• International Space Station (ISS) pass-over information with precise timing for your location

Location Management
• Set and save your home location for quick access
• Add locations manually or use location services for automatic positioning
• Search for locations worldwide
• Save multiple favourite locations for easy switching
• All location data stored locally on your device

Why Clearoutside?
Updated hourly, because frequent updates matter! Often the clear spell between showers provides excellent seeing, and 30 minutes under a clear sky with a grab-and-go telescope is pure gold.

Our favourite feature? The ISS pass-over information is precisely calculated for your location and displayed alongside cloud forecasts, making it easier than ever to catch the station overhead.

No cutesy graphics - just detailed, reliable weather data presented clearly for serious observers.

We've had a lot of fun building and testing Clear Outside and are keen to develop it further. If you find it useful or have suggestions, please let us know!

Ratings and reviews

it's nice to have so much data in a single app. But when there's no legend to tell you what everything means and you have no scale it just looks convoluted and hard to understand. There's also no reason for military time being the default. Most people have to add and subtract 12 to figure out what time they're referencing unless you were in the military and you're used to that. There are similar apps that are much easier to read. Now that I know that I don't miss this one at all.

I drive 45 miles to a dark site to use a telescope and need a reliable sky condition forecast. The app's easy to read format gives me a go/no-go reliable forecast. Good for up to 7 days it also helps for planning purposes. Your current location is the default forecast while you can create a set of different locations. Recently I traveled to a site where the 23% scattered clouds cleared just when the forecast predicted.

Better of with the Met Office app, I recently got back into astrophotography and if I'd relied on the information in this app I would have missed around 5 imaging nights in the space of a couple of weeks. I used to use it around 5 year ago and I'm sure it was a lot more accurate then.

What’s new

✨ Adds location name top bar when viewing location