Star TonightCan I see the stars tonight?
Star Tonight answers with one number. Cloud cover, the moon, darkness, light pollution and transparency roll into a score from 0 to 100, a straight YES, MAYBE or NO, and the best hour to be outside.
Coming soon to the App Store
$2.99 once. No accounts, no ads, no tracking.
Five things decide if it's worth going outside.
Star Tonight scores every hour from dark until about 2am (or dawn, if that comes first), then rolls the night into one number, weighted toward the best three-hour stretch. Weather comes from Apple Weather. The astronomy is worked out on your phone.
Cloud cover
Low, mid and high clouds, hour by hour. Thick low cloud counts for more than thin, high cirrus. This is the big one.
6% cloud
The moon
How bright it is and whether it's actually up while it's dark. A full moon up all night caps the score, no matter how clear it is.
18% lit, sets 9:40pm
Darkness
When astronomical twilight ends. Far enough north in midsummer, the sky never gets fully dark, and the score says so.
Fully dark from 8:12pm
Light pollution
Estimated from the size of your town, or set it yourself: city, suburb, rural or dark site. A city sky and a dark-sky park get honest, different scores.
Suburban sky
Transparency
Humidity, dew point, visibility and the chance of rain. Hazy, damp air eats the faint stars first.
Crisp and dry
84YES
Best window10pm–1am
Pick the hour. Then pick the night.
The best window means you're not standing in a cold field at the wrong time. The 7-night outlook means you can plan the good night instead of hoping for it.
Best window 10pm–1am
- 58at8pm
- 70at9pm
- 82at10pm
- 88at11pm
- 86at12am
- 71at1am
Best night this week: Monday, 88.
- Tonight, Thu84YES
- Fri41MAYBE
- Sat23NO
- Sun66MAYBE
- Mon88YES
- Tue75YES
- Wed52MAYBE
The sky runs on a schedule. This keeps it for you.
Meteor showers
Every major shower on the calendar, with a reminder on peak night. You also get an honest guess at how many you'll actually see from where you are, after the moon and your town's lights take their cut. Not the textbook number.
| Shower | Peak | Perfect-sky rate |
|---|---|---|
| Quadrantids | Jan 3–4 | 120/hr |
| Lyrids | Apr 22 | 18/hr |
| Eta Aquariids | May 5–6 | 50/hr |
| Perseids | Aug 12–13 | 100/hr |
| Orionids | Oct 21 | 20/hr |
| Leonids | Nov 17 | 15/hr |
| Geminids | Dec 13–14 | 150/hr |
Aurora watch
Star Tonight reads NOAA's space-weather forecast and works out whether a storm actually reaches you, using geomagnetic latitude rather than just how far north you live. When it does, you get a banner and a direction to look.
Aurora possible tonight
Kp 6 in the forecast. Look north after dark.
Example banner
Planets and the moon
Which planets are up, where to look, and when. Plus the moon's phase, rise and set, and how much of the dark it's going to spoil.
- Moon
- 18% lit, sets 9:40pm
- Saturn
- Up all evening, look southeast
- Jupiter
- Rises late, look east
Example night
Red-light mode, for your night vision.
Your eyes need 20 to 30 minutes to adjust to the dark, and one look at a bright white screen starts the clock over. Red-light mode turns the whole app red and black, the way astronomers set up their gear, so you can check the timeline without going blind for the next half hour.
Built in Connecticut.
I'm Richard. I build small apps under LoRicco & Co, out of Connecticut. Star Tonight exists because I got tired of driving out to the lake on a night that looked clear at dinner and was solid cloud by ten.
Every weather app gave me a cloud percentage. None of them told me if it was worth the drive. So I built the thing I wanted: one number, the best hour, and a heads-up when a meteor shower's actually worth staying up for. It's the sibling of Grill Tonight, which does the same job for burgers.
If the score looks wrong for your sky, tell me and I'll fix it: admin@loriccoandco.com
Richard Loricco
$2.99.
Once.
Coming soon to the App Store
- Pay once
- Every feature, no subscription, no in-app purchases.
- No account
- Nothing to sign up for. Your places and settings stay on your phone.
- No ads, no tracking
- No ad SDKs, no analytics. Weather comes from Apple Weather, space weather from NOAA, and the astronomy is worked out on your phone.
Questions
Anything else is on the support page.
How does the score work?
Every hour from dark until about 2am gets scored on cloud cover, the moon, darkness, light pollution and transparency. The night's score leans on the best three-hour stretch, so one cloudy hour at 8pm doesn't sink a great midnight. 70 and up is YES, 40 to 69 is MAYBE, under 40 is NO. Rain or a thunderstorm in the window makes it a NO, full stop.
How much is it?
$2.99, once. No subscription, no in-app purchases, no ads. You get everything.
Do I need an account?
No. There's nothing to sign up for. Your saved places and settings live on your phone.
What happens with my location?
Only if you tap “Use my location”: the app reads your position once and sends the coordinates to Apple's weather and geocoding services to get your forecast and town name. It's never used in the background and it never comes to us. You can type a town instead. The privacy policy has the details.
Why would the forecast be wrong?
Clouds are one of the hardest things in weather to forecast, and a few hours can change everything. Star Tonight is only as good as the forecast it's reading, so check again closer to dark and use the hour-by-hour view to catch a clear gap.
Will it remind me about meteor showers?
If you turn reminders on, yes: a heads-up on peak nights, and a “clear tonight” nudge when the forecast looks good. They're scheduled on your phone, not sent from a server.
Is there an Android version?
Not right now. Star Tonight is an iPhone app.
When can I get it?
Soon. It's on its way to the App Store, and this page gets the download link the day it's live.