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Saturday, August 8, 2026

Nightscape Photography Resources

Cropped from a horizontal (landscape) image captured with my GoPro Mission 1 Pro (use my NIGHTSCAPER10 discount code to get 10% off any GoPro purchase).

Here are some resources for the astro-landscape or "nightscape" photographer. Many of the items listed here are free resources:

NightScaper Facebook Group
I started this moderated group in 2015. There are now about 200,000 members posting their favorite astrophotos. You can lurk (view only) or join and participate (post and comment). In order to join the group you must agree to the group's rules and answer two questions. Correctly doing those requirements gives you automatic membership approval, and you can begin commenting on posts within the group. In order to post images you must identify the image category (such as single exposure, blend, stacked, tracked and etc.). How you took the photo (EXIF) and backstory are also helpful, but not required. All this information helps to make the group a generous wealth of information.

My Patreon account offers scores of free tutorials and information pages on nightscape photography. Membership is free; however, supporting members (for as little as $1/month) get additional levels of information and they are able to communicate directly to me, enabling them to ask specific questions.

My Instagram account not only features my work but showcases hundreds of other nightscapers from all over the world. The account currently has over 450,000 followers. My collaborating artists typically provide plenty of BTS and technical information about their images. Additionally, you can join my broadcast channel, Nightscaper Lounge, and receive more behind-the-scene information and tips on astro-landscape photography.

Here's my free tutorial website on LLL or Low Level Lighting, complete with the equipment I use and tips on how I set up the lights. There's also a video.

Star Trail CleanR is a free automated AI tool built by Bruce Herwig and Claude Code to remove airplane and satellite trails from individual night-sky frames before you stack with StarStax (or other star trail creation tools) into a final star trail image. It saves hours of manual retouching in Photoshop. Free for Mac, Windows and Linux.

Star trails stacker or a single image stacker: Drop in a folder of frames. Satrelle locks onto the stars and builds your shot two ways: flowing star trails or a tack-sharp Milky Way. Every pixel is light you actually captured. No AI fill. No fake skies. No cloud. Download the software directly to your computer. Free for 7-days. Limited version (stack up to 200 images) is free forever. Mac only.

In my opinion, Sky Guide is one of the most elegant star constellation finder apps ever created. I've owned this app since 2014. Unlike other apps that use computer simulated images of the night sky, Sky Guide actually uses real night sky photography (views generated from 137,000 images)! From these views of the night sky you can tell the app to move forward or backward in time and view the night sky from where you are standing—as you point your iPhone or iPad in that direction. Absolutely beautiful augmented reality. You control what constellation overlays you see, if any. Warning: this app can be downloaded for free, and then it will ask you to upgrade to the PLUS or PRO versions, with various monthly or yearly subscription plans, some costing up to $59.99/year or a PRO lifetime membership of $249.99. Don't do it! Just stick with the free version or pay the one-time $2.99 and brag to all about how smart you were to get such a great app at such a great price! You don't need all the bells and whistles, just the basic app.

Stellarium is a free open source planetarium for your computer. In 2009, when it first came out, Stellarium was the only software available for night sky planning. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye or binoculars. Freely downloadable for Linux, Windows and Mac. Nowadays, I find it more convenient to use the free online web version. A free mobile version is also available for both Apple and Android (linked from the webpage). Although Stellarium Mobile does not provide the depth of features available from PhotoPills or Planit Pro, it is free and still provides good nighttime augmented reality for your nightscape planning.

This is the light pollution map I recommend in my ebook on page 58. The atlas uses a new expanded color scale by David Lorenz that is considered by many to be more accurate and provide
greater utility than previous light pollution maps that used the Bortle Scale. The units listed for each color are magnitudes per square arc-second. The white and light gray are somewhat comparable to the old Bortle Scale 9/8. The red shades are comparable to Bortle Class 7, orange shades to class 6, yellow shades to class 5, green shades to class 4, blue shades to class 3, medium and dark gray shades to class 2, and black to Bortle Class 1 (to compare these last shades of gray and black, you may need to adjust the opacity slider on the right side of the atlas. The layers menu on the top left allows you to go between street and topo version, and go back in time to see how light pollution has increased in an area.

Although my newsletters are mainly about astro-landscape photography, be prepared to learn anything that will help increase your creative abilities as a photographic artist!

"Creating Natural NightScape Photographs" is a free 90-minute seminar I presented with the help of my friends, Ralf Rohner, Manish Mamtani, Eric Benedetti and Clarence Spencer. It was given on March 14, 2017 before a group of 240 people. Although the information shared is somewhat outdated for advanced nightscapers, beginners and intermediates will still find it quite useful.

Halcyon gives week-at-glance forecasts for golden hour color, fog, astro, and storm drama—with 0 to 100 scores. This is a free web app that installs like a native app (to your smartphone or to your web browser), so no app store is needed. Halcyon will sit on your home screen like any app, and it keeps working offline with whatever it last fetched. Once installed, you can save your regular spots and the six tabs (sunrise, sunset, stars, fog, storm, aurora) will score each of them for the week ahead. The Milky Way calendar is under the calendar icon. All of its astronomy is computed on your device, so it works anywhere on Earth for any year. Developed by Rajesh Jyothiswaran.

Milky Way Tonight
Milky Way Tonight gives you weather, dark sky ratings, moon phase, and galactic core timing—all calculated hour by hour for your exact location. Every tool. One app. This is not a free app. It was built by Jack Fusco and costs $7.99. PhotoPills ($10.99) and Planit Pro ($9.99) have been around for about a decade, so why would you want to pay for another photo planning app? I purchased Milky Way Tonight because I like its elegant simplicity and it gives me additional info, like weather, that the other two don't provide. Update: clicking on "Sky View" (bottom) will give you access to night augmented reality, as well as other unique features like Core Alignment. Expect video tutorials on some of these cool features in the near future.

PhotoPills, Sky Guide, Stellarium and Milky Way Tonight, do a good job of nighttime augmented reality planning—letting you see how night sky objects align with your earthly foreground features; however, you have to be standing at your location to visualize this alignment. They are not as accurate in helping you visualize that alignment from a different location, such as while you are planning at your home, months in advance. This is where Planit Pro really shines. It can build a model of your foreground (like this one of Shiprock mountain in New Mexico) and tell you where you need to be standing in order to capture the Milk Way on any given date and with what lens! Because Planit Pro has a bit of a learning curve, I suggest you view these free how-to video tutorials by the amazing Mike Shaw. Mike can also custom plan your astro alignments for you, if you'd like that convenience and his expertise.
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