Introducing
Milky Way Tonight

Every time I planned a Milky Way shoot, I did the same thing. I'd check the weather app, then switch to a moon phase app, then pull up a Bortle map in my browser, then open a star chart to confirm the galactic core would actually be in a usable position at that location. Four apps, at minimum, before I even knew whether the night was worth attempting.

After years of this, I built Milky Way Tonight to solve exactly that problem, for myself and for anyone else who shoots the night sky seriously.

I wanted one place to answer the only question that matters before a shoot: is tonight worth it?

What the app actually does

Milky Way Tonight pulls together four things that have never lived in the same place:

• Galactic core timing. Rise time, peak altitude, and the exact window when the core is above 10 degrees and astronomical darkness has begun.
• Cloud cover during that window. Not just a nightly average. The actual forecast for the hours the core is visible.
• Moon phase and illumination. Checked against your own threshold, so you decide what counts as too bright.
• Bortle class for your exact coordinates. Pulled live from VIIRS satellite data, not estimated from your city.

All of that gets combined into a single verdict: go or no. And when it's a no, it tells you exactly what's blocking you and surfaces the next good night automatically.

More than a forecast

The forecast is the foundation, but it's not the whole app. Milky Way Tonight also includes tools I use on every shoot:

• An exposure calculator that uses the NPF rule, accounting for your actual focal length, aperture, sensor size, and the declination of whatever you're pointing at.
• A composition planner that overlays the galactic core arc on a live map, with a time scrubber so you can preview exactly where it will be at any hour.
• A Sky View AR star map where you can point your phone at the sky or scrub to any future date and hour to scout a location before driving out.
• A Dark Sky Finder that ranks nearby locations by both Bortle class and cloud forecast combined, so you can find a better option nearby when your usual spot is clouded out.

Why now

The tools to build something like this have been available for years, but nothing combined them in a way that felt like it was made for photographers specifically. Most weather apps are built for hikers or pilots. Most star chart apps are built for visual observers. Milky Way Tonight is built for the person standing in a dark field at 11pm trying to figure out whether to set up the tripod or go home.

That's the app I always wanted. I hope it's useful to you too.

Jack Fusco
jackfusco.com