Features

Explore

Updated 2026-11-04

Explore is where you plan a shoot. It is one full-screen map with your camera and your subject on it, a timeline for the day, and the sun, moon and Milky Way core drawn where they will be. Drag the timeline and watch the light move across your scene before you leave home. The astronomy is computed on your device, so it works with no signal.

Explore is in the iPhone and Android apps. The web app keeps the alignment finder described below.

Open it

Tap Explore in the tab bar. On a phone you land on the Explore page: a map card that opens the workspace, and shortcuts to your Locations, your Lists and your plans. On iPad and other wide screens the workspace opens straight away. On iPad a slim rail at the left edge keeps Conditions, Studio, Tools and Capture one tap away while you plan, and tapping the logo at its top slides out the full sidebar; come back to Explore and your plan is where you left it. The first time you open the map, a short five-step tour shows you around without getting in the way: tap the map for your subject, tap again for your camera, scrub the time, watch the sun, moon and core move, and open the lens. Each step moves on as you do it, and Show me around replays the tour any time. The first time a plan has both pins, a small hint next to the checkmark shows how to save it. On Ultra, Viewpoint also asks once whether you want the app to open on Explore every time; Open on Explore takes you there at once.

Plan on the map

  1. Select your subject, then set your camera position. Tap your subject on the map: the first tap selects the subject, and the next tap sets the camera position, where you will shoot from. The subject and camera buttons in the right-hand stack let you pick either one first. Tap a pin for its menu: move it, swap the two, copy its coordinates or remove it. Arrows at the edge of the screen point to a pin that is out of view.
  2. Pick your lens. Set the focal length, the sensor and a teleconverter. The map draws the wedge your lens sees, so you can check the frame covers your subject. On a phone the map stays upright whichever way you hold it.
  3. Scrub the timeline. The sun, moon and Milky Way core move across the map as you drag. Step between events, set an exact time, and read the twilight and darkness hours, the moon’s phase and the sky events of the day. You can freeze a moment on the timeline to compare it with another.
  4. Read the sky. The sun and moon bars show the bearing and height of each at the chosen time, and the sun, moon and Milky Way core are drawn on the map from NASA pictures. The Sky switches in the layers menu turn each one on or off.
  5. Search. Look up coordinates, places, your plans, your Locations, your Lists and your routes from one field. On Max and Ultra, place search asks Google first and ranks landmarks and well-known places higher, so a name like a famous statue or arch finds it at the top. A result opens the map zoomed to what you searched: close in for a landmark, wider for a city.
  6. Reset or swap. The buttons in the right-hand stack clear the pins back to a fresh start or swap the camera and the subject. Undo and redo are there too.

The map

Explore’s map is the OpenStreetMap map Viewpoint uses everywhere else. With the Max plan, from Viewpoint 2.3.1, Explore’s map on iPhone, iPad and Android is Google Maps whenever you have a connection, with Google’s logo and attribution at the bottom of the map and Map data next to it for the other sources. Satellite on Google shows the imagery with street and place names on top. Start or end the Max plan, or sign in or out, while Explore is open and the map changes right away, with your pins, time and lens where they were.

3D view. On Ultra the cube button at the top of the map’s right-hand controls opens the 3D world: a photorealistic view from your camera spot, with the sun, moon and Milky Way core where they will really be. Walk around to judge the scene and draw a frame to find the dates; pins are set on this 2D map. See Ultra and the 3D world and Best practices: planning a shot in 3D. It is in beta.

Steep peaks and tall subjects on Satellite. Satellite photos are taken at an angle, so on a steep peak or around a tall statue or building, what you see can sit tens of metres from where it really stands. A subject pin placed on the photo can then land beside the real subject. For these, check the subject in the 3D view, where the scenery is drawn where it really is, then move the subject pin on this map to match.

Without a connection, Explore on Google Maps switches to the OpenStreetMap map, and your pins, plan and alignments stay exactly where they were. Like every map in the app, the imagery for an area you haven’t viewed needs a connection to load: see How Viewpoint works offline. In the web app, the map is OpenStreetMap.

The calendar

The calendar button on Explore’s time sheet, or a tap on the date under the clock, opens the same calendar the Conditions tab’s Moon sheet shows, over the map, so your camera and subject stay in view above it. Pick what the month shows: the Moon phase, the Milky Way core’s dark hours each night, Meteors (a meteor on a shower’s peak night and a faint dot on each night it is active) or Golden and blue hour times for each day. Switch to Events for the night’s sky events. Tap a day to move Explore to it at the same time of day; the calendar closes on its own, and the X closes it without changing the day. On the full time sheet, tap the words before the date (“Today”, “In 4 days”) to show the days around it, and tap one of those to jump straight to it. Scrubbing the time gives a light tick as the minutes move and a firmer one on each hour and at sunrise, sunset and the golden and blue hour edges, when your phone’s haptics are on. Explore reopens the calendar on the last view you picked.

The header and the plan menu

With no saved plan open, the top of Explore is three controls: the X to leave, a wide search field (tap it to search places, plans and coordinates), and a round plan button at the top right. Inside a saved plan the header is one row: the X, the plan’s name, a search button and the plan button’s check. The search button opens the same search as a sheet. Under the row, undo and redo appear as soon as there is something to undo.

The plan button is your plan’s menu: an amber check in a dashed ring with a small dot means a draft, a plan not saved yet or changed since you last saved it; a plain white check means the plan is saved. Tap it to open the menu:

  • Save (or Save changes on a saved plan), when there is something to save, opens the save sheet.
  • Plans at this Location lists the plans you already have there, with the open one ticked, so you can switch.
  • New plan starts an empty plan.
  • Rename lets you type the plan’s name right in the menu.
  • Add to calendar puts the shoot in your calendar at the plan’s time and place, and tells you whether it worked.
  • Directions to the viewpoint opens your maps app at the camera pin.
  • Discard changes, on a saved plan you have changed, puts the plan back the way it was saved.
  • Delete plan removes a saved plan from this device and your account; on a draft it reads Discard draft and clears the pins. All three ask first: tap the X to keep it or the checkmark to go ahead.

Clearing all the pins of a saved plan starts a new plan, so the saved one is never overwritten by an empty map.

Add to calendar and Directions appear once the camera pin is placed. Deleting a plan works on every plan, saving or not.

Save the plan

Open the plan button’s menu and tap Save. The save sheet names the plan, keeps it with your shoot plans, and lets you watch the camera spot for the conditions you care about, including the Milky Way core window. Once it is saved, Explore closes and takes you back to where you opened it, with a Saved message that has an Open button to bring the plan back. On iPad you stay in Explore on the saved plan, and a message says it is saved to Plans. In the iPhone, iPad and Android app, on a plan you saved before, the sheet asks which you mean: Save changes to that plan, or Save as a new plan, which leaves the first one as it was.

If you leave without saving, your work stays as a draft on this device and Explore offers it back the next time you open it. In the app, changes to a saved plan come back only from Continue planning on the Explore tab (on iPad, from the Explore tab itself). Opening Explore from a Location, from Tools or from a link starts a fresh plan, and your changes wait under Plans at this Location in the plan menu. Just looking never replaces them: only if you change the fresh plan (place or move a pin, change the time or the lens) and then leave does Explore ask whether to keep the new draft or your changes to the saved plan.

What is included

  What you get
Free The whole Explore workspace: pins, lens, timeline, sun, moon and core, search and the tour. A draft is kept on this device.
Pro Save the plan to your shoot plans and keep it.
Max When does it line up?, the finder below, and watch the camera spot to get an alert when the conditions line up. Max includes everything in Pro.

Pro is a one-time purchase with no account needed; Max is a subscription. Bought Pro before these two tools moved to Max? You keep When does it line up? and satellite transits for good, on every device signed in to the same store account. Prices are set by the store for your region. See Getting started for the full plan breakdown.

When does it line up?

Sometimes you know your subject and your Location, and want the exact day. The finder button on the map’s right-hand stack (a magnifier with the sun on a horizon) opens When does it line up? on its own clean workspace, so nothing you do there changes your plan until you choose.

  1. Select your subject first, then set your camera position by tapping where you will shoot from (or use My location). If you only have the subject placed, the finder asks for the camera next, and a tap or My location sets the camera, never the subject.
  2. Choose what should line up (the sun, the moon or the Milky Way core) and how close, then Find dates.
  3. Look ahead 1, 2 or 5 years. Results come one year at a time, this year first; a later year is searched when you open it.

Each result lists the date and time, the body’s compass direction and height, the moon’s illumination and the distance to the subject. The Milky Way core only returns passes in astronomical darkness. Tap a result to move the finder’s map and timeline to that moment, and Where to stand shows the line on the map where the subject’s top sits at the right height, with Move camera onto the line to put your camera there. Use in plan brings the pins and the time into your plan (you can undo it, and if your plan already has pins you choose whether to replace them or save as a new plan).

If it can never work, the finder says so and why: It never lines up from here, for example because the direction and height are never reached at your latitude, the subject’s top is below the horizon from the camera, or the core is never there in a dark sky.

The finder is part of Max. In the 3D world you can draw a frame on the sky and get the same dates.

Find your viewpoint — let it find where to stand

Sometimes you know the subject but not where to shoot it from. Find your viewpoint runs this same search in reverse: name your subject — a mountain, a lighthouse, a city landmark — and Viewpoint finds the places you could stand so the sun, moon, or Milky Way core lines up behind it, the times it happens, and the lens to bring. It can even suggest real, named vantage points photographers use — and every position, angle, and time is still computed and verified by the astronomy engine, never invented.

Read about Find your viewpoint → — in the Viewpoint web app and on iPhone.

The sky needs no connection

All of the astronomy is calculated on your device. The sun, moon and Milky Way positions and your saved plans work with no signal. The map underneath does not: imagery for an area you haven’t viewed needs a connection, and there are no offline maps yet.

Availability

The Explore workspace is free for everyone. Saving a plan is part of Pro, a one-time purchase with no account needed, and is included in Max too. When does it line up? and watching are part of Max; on Free and Pro the finder still shows how many dates line up, and a tap opens the plans. Bought Pro before these two tools moved to Max? You keep When does it line up? and satellite transits for good, on every device signed in to the same store account. See Getting started for the full plan breakdown.