Features
AR Celestial Scout
Point your iPhone at the sky and see where the sun, moon, and Milky Way will be — overlaid on the real world, in real time.
Point your phone at the landscape and see exactly where the sun, moon, or Milky Way will travel across the sky — and how the star trails will wheel around the celestial pole — overlaid on the live camera. Scrub time with your thumb to watch the body sweep its arc, find the moment it lines up with your subject, and start a shoot plan right there.
What you get
- The real Milky Way over your camera. Turn on Milky Way and the scout lays a real photograph of the whole sky over the camera — the glowing core in Sagittarius, the dark dust lanes, the Magellanic Clouds in the south — placed exactly where it sits for your location and time. It is a see-through layer, so the landscape stays visible underneath. Turn and roll the phone and you can follow the whole band, looking the same above and below the horizon and behind a ridge. In daylight it turns into a dark strip of night sky over a lightly dimmed view, so it stays easy to see against a bright scene.
- Live sky overlay. The sun, its path coloured by the light at each height — deep blue before dawn, violet in the blue hour, red at sunrise, orange in the golden hour, yellow by day — and the moon, drawn as a real photograph lit at tonight’s phase and turned the way you’ll see it, each with their current position, plus the Milky Way, are drawn over the camera using your phone’s compass and tilt. The arcs trace the whole day’s path, drawn the same above and below the horizon — like the Milky Way — so you can follow a body all the way round, see exactly where it rises and sets, and still find the sun or moon when it’s below the horizon or behind a ridge. A dashed line marks the true horizon (it works offline too), a faint line the terrain skyline when it has loaded, and a target labelled Milky Way core, with its height, marks where to aim, brightening from grey to gold as it climbs — the cue for when it’s best placed.
- Show only what you need. Toggle Sun / Moon / Milky Way / Star Trails independently so the overlay stays uncluttered for the shot you’re planning.
- Star Trails — preview the night’s rotation. Switch on Star Trails to see the sky’s pivot point — the celestial pole (near the North Star up north; due south below the equator) — marked on the camera, with the concentric circles the stars wheel around it. Set your planned exposure with the scrubber and the trails grow to match: a longer exposure draws longer streaks. Frame the pole and judge how the star-trail arcs will fall across your composition before you ever open the shutter.
- Pick any date. Tap the date chip to choose the day and time you’re planning for — the arcs rebuild for that night, so you can scout a shoot weeks ahead, not just right now.
- Time scrubbing. Drag the dial — or just drag the sky left/right — to move time forward and back. The orbs glide along their arcs, and the sun’s arc shifts colour through the day’s light phases (golden hour, blue hour, twilight) as you scrub.
- Snap back to now. Scrubbed forward or picked a future day? A Now button returns the scout to the present moment in one tap.
- Compose — drag the body to where you want it. Tap Compose, then drag the sun, moon, or Milky Way marker to exactly the Location in your frame where you want it — over a peak, beside a tree, behind a chapel. The scout answers when (if ever) the real body will be there, live as you drag, and shows the next date and time on a chip. A soft glow shows the band of sky the body actually travels, so you can see at a glance where it can go. Tap the chip to see every upcoming window, then tap one to start a shoot plan at that moment. You can also save the result as a composition guide — a reusable note of what to shoot and the lens you framed it with — filed against a new or existing Location. Pick the moon’s phase (full, gibbous, …) before you solve. If the body can never reach that Location from where you’re standing, the scout says so kindly — with a Why? that explains how to fix it (move the marker, or scout a different vantage point) — instead of leaving you guessing.
- Line it up (visual calibration). Compasses drift, and every phone’s lens is a little different. Tap the scope button, then drag the sky until a body (say the sun) sits exactly on the real one, and tap Done. The scout remembers that nudge on this device and applies it everywhere, so the overlay matches what you actually see. Reset clears it.
- Plan in place. When a body sits where you want it, tap Plan this moment to save a shoot plan for that time.
- Capture what you scouted. Tap the camera button to snap the frame with the overlay drawn on it — the sun and moon lines and orbs and the Milky Way baked into the photo. Then save it to a new Location where you’re standing, or add it to an existing Location. When you come back at night, you have the exact frame and the body alignment you had in mind — not just a pin on a map.
Terrain horizon needs a connection
The scout draws the real skyline — ridgelines and mountains — over the camera, so you can see where the sun or moon will actually clear it. That terrain shape is computed from elevation data on our servers, so this part needs an internet connection — the app tells you clearly when it isn’t available rather than showing a wrong horizon.
The horizon also reflects your eye height: tap the ruler button in the scout to set your camera or tripod height, and the skyline updates — raise the camera and you see a little further over nearby terrain. (It’s the same height Explore uses.)
Without a connection, the scout still works — the arc, the orb, time-scrubbing, and planning all run on-device — you just won’t get the terrain silhouette until you’re back in coverage. Offline downloads for an area are on the way so you can take the full scout (terrain included) into the backcountry.
Accuracy & compass calibration
The overlay is built from your phone’s motion sensors and compass, matched to your camera’s real field of view, so it tracks smoothly even when you point straight up. The compass is the limiting factor — it’s a planning guide, not survey-grade, so expect alignment within a few degrees.
If your compass is unreliable where you’re standing, the scout tells you: an amber “Low compass accuracy” banner appears under the header (with iOS’s own ± estimate) instead of silently drawing the sky in the wrong place. Tap it for these same tips. When the compass recovers, the banner clears on its own — or tap the ✕ to dismiss it for the session if you’ve read the caveat and just want it out of the way (it returns next time you reopen the scout if the compass is still off).
For the best accuracy out of the box:
- Let your phone calibrate its compass. If iOS shows the figure-8 prompt (a red arc asking you to roll the phone in a figure-8), do it — a freshly-calibrated compass is what puts the sun, moon and Milky Way on the real sky without any manual tweaking.
- Stay clear of magnetic interference. Cars, speakers, magnets and magnetic phone mounts or cases pull the compass off true north. If the bodies suddenly look wrong, move away from metal/magnets and let the compass recalibrate — that’s almost always the cause.
- Micro-adjust only if needed. Any small residual offset is what visual calibration (above) is for — tap the scope button, drag the sky until a body sits on the real one, and the scout remembers that nudge on this device. With a calibrated compass you’ll rarely need it.
Availability
The AR Celestial Scout is part of Pro, a one-time purchase with no account needed, and it is included in Max too. See Getting started for the full plan breakdown.
Terrain elevation is derived from open data (Tilezen Terrain Tiles / AWS Open Data; Mapzen, USGS and contributors).
The Milky Way photograph is “The Milky Way panorama” by ESO/S. Brunier, used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Milky Way: ESO/S. Brunier — the same credit appears on screen whenever the scout draws it, and on photos you capture with it.