Sun Surveyor Lite

Adam Ratana

About this app

Sun Surveyor Lite takes the mystery out of the sunrise, sunset and magic hours, helping photographers and filmmakers scout the best locations, plan effectively, and get the perfect shot. Solar Industry (PV) Professionals, architects, real estate agents, and gardeners will also find a wealth of empowering, interactive features.

The 3D Compass and detailed Ephemeris provide a wealth of information about the largest natural light source in the galaxy:

- Predict and plan for the golden hour, blue hour and every sunrise & sunset
- Visualize the sun's path throughout the day or through the year

Additional features:

- Visual time machine - take a quick glance at the light for a day, or dial in desired compositions easily
- Twilight times - civil, nautical, astronomical
- Solstice and Equinox visualization
- Sun shadow information - calculate the length of shadows cast by objects
- Magnetic declination compensation

Check out the Full Version of Sun Surveyor for more:

- Live Camera View - augmented reality projections of the sun and moon paths; pinpoint the time the sun or moon will be at a particular location in the sky
- Interactive Map View - plan a remote shot or PV array placement, interact with a top-down perspective of sun and moon paths and events
- Street View Panoramas - 360 degree spherical panoramas with selected sun, moon and milky way events overlaid, where available
- Moon Information: moon position, moonrise, moonset, moon phases, apogee, perigee, distance and a Super Moon finder
- Show clients the quality and quantity of seasonal sunlight at a remote location
- Understand potential shade of surroundings and discover any obstructions
- Create images of the summer and winter Solstice & Equinox paths for a site
- Prepare night photography shots with the Milky Way & star trail features
- Offline usage (excludes Map View, Street View) - enter coordinates, save & load locations with no data connection or GPS available
- Measure distance, and difference between elevations, and vertical angle differentials with the Map view
- Import and export Google Earth .kmz/.kml locations

Ratings and reviews

I like the interface and the overall layout, but there's one major issue - both Morning and Evening Golden Hour are calculated incorrectly. The general consensus being that GH is when the Sun is between 6 degrees below and 6 degrees above the horizon. However this app calculates it as between 0 degrees and 10 degrees above.

The app misses basic features for both lite & paid versions that are available in other free apps; most importantly daily reminders/alarms for specific events, customizable widgets for selective events and just that the 3D Compass is so uninformative with the lower-half of the orbit being cut for no reason

I have both Lite and the Paid version and I cannot see why anyone thinks $8.00 is a lot to pay - gracious me, that is so reasonable for what you get on this app. I use it all the time for my photography and it pinpoints me to exactly where I need to be with my camera to capture both sun and moon rising and setting. This evening is full moon so thanks to this App, Brighton Pier is being shown as one of the best locations to capture the full 'Worm' moon rising at the same time the beautiful sun setting.

What's new

- Style update: updated the app to use Material Design 3
- Many Android 12-related updates and fixes